by J. R. Rain
* * *
I didn’t remember much about the car wash, but I did remember the old woman watching me.
I had been sitting in the waiting area, probably reading a book or a magazine or on my phone texting. I’d just gotten into texting back then, and that had been the death of me. I both loved and loathed texting, as technology was both loved and reviled by me. It put a degree of separation between me and other people, and yet in some ways, like the Psychic Network, it was a tool to bring me close to people with whom I would not otherwise ever connect.
Anyway, I now remembered, more than anything about that day, the overwhelming feeling that someone had been watching me. The feeling was very familiar to what I was feeling now, here in my apartment. A slow, steady, ripple of electrical current. Almost a buzzing in my ears. Almost. A sense that eyes were on me, moving over me, penetrating me, looking so deeply that nothing was hidden. Nothing.
I remember shivering and looking up, glancing around...and seeing her sitting across from me. She was alone. And old. Very, very old. So old that I thought someone should be with her. But there was no one. No grandkids, no bored sons or daughters. She was also staring at me. Intently. I smiled. She didn’t. I looked away. She didn’t. I knew this because when I sneaked a peek back at her, she was still staring at me. I swallowed uncomfortably and shifted and tried to read but I couldn’t. After all, she was staring at me. She was distracting me. She was unnerving me.
And that’s when a towel boy waved his towel and indicated that my Accord was done. I had leaped up quickly. I tipped the kid, got in, and was about to pull out of the car wash and onto busy Ventura Boulevard when I forced myself to look back...and saw that the old lady was gone.
As if she hadn’t ever stood there.
It had been unnerving.
I’d forgotten about it totally.
Until now.
“That was you, wasn’t it?” I said to the empty room, still looking at the receipt.
“Of course, dear,” said a voice just behind my ear. “Now, can we talk?”
Chapter Thirteen
I jumped and squealed and nearly peed myself, but just as quickly as the fear and panic gripped me, it subsided, and I was left gasping and catching my breath, one hand clutching my chest. The other, clutching the wine.
“Please,” I said after a moment, and after I was sure I had full control over my bladder, “please, never do that again.”
As I breathed and held my hand over my chest, knowing that I was either going crazy or was experiencing the mother of all hauntings, I felt the sizzle of an electric current pulse through me. Stronger than before.
Not crazy, I thought. Option B...a haunting.
The old woman materialized slowly before me, taking on substance and shape and detail, and had every skeptic in the world been here with me, watching this, they wouldn’t be a skeptic anymore. They would be a believer in all things supernatural. And my little apartment would be crowded as hell. Hell, I could charge admission.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
“Please, dear, you’re better than that.”
It took me a moment to realize that a ghost had just chastised me for swearing.
I didn’t apologize. I just closed my mouth and held my breath and listened to the small squeal that was trying to make its way out from my compressed lips, a squeal that very likely would turn into a scream. But I kept it bottled up, somehow.
In a matter of maybe half a minute, a woman who was mostly solid—after all, I could still see my fireplace mantel through her shoulder area—was standing before me, hands folded below her waist, rising and falling gently. She could have been standing in a boat in the middle of a lake. She wasn’t, of course. She was standing in my living room.
“Sweet mama,” I finally said.
“Hello, Allison,” she said.
“Erp,” I said. That was supposed to, of course, be a “hi.”
The woman was mostly white, which surprised me. Samantha Moon, my vampire friend, had described ghosts as pure energy. I wasn’t seeing pure energy. I was seeing something cottony, with splashes of color. Something mostly solid, but also opaque in spots, too. Whatever Samantha had been seeing, she hadn’t been seeing what I was seeing now. Then again, vampires were weird.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” said the ghost. Her voice had a slightly musical quality to it and seemed to reach me from everywhere at once. As if her voice was coming out of surround sound speakers.
That’s when I realized that her voice wasn’t coming from everywhere at once. It was coming from inside my ear. As in, inside my head.
“Sweet Jesus,” I whispered.
“He is sweet,” said the woman. I watched her lips move, watched her speak, but the words appeared directly in my head. “The name has power, as do many names and words, for that matter. Do not speak it lightly, dear.”
“This isn’t happening,” I said, suddenly sure I was dreaming. I looked around. I wasn’t in bed. I was on the couch. I stood suddenly, with the thought of splashing water on my face in the bathroom, but a sharp pain in my foot changed that plan. I gasped and sank back into the couch. The pain in my toe was enough to convince me I wasn’t dreaming.
Now breathing hard, I had worked myself up. “I need air,” I gasped.
“Then get some air, dear.”
I stood and staggered through the room, keeping one eye on the spirit who turned and watched me cross the room and head over to my balcony. There, I threw open the sliding glass door and breathed the not-so-fresh Beverly Hills air. I smelled traces of exhaust, yes, but I also smelled the nearby jacaranda trees, which were blooming, and the freshly cut grass, too. Good enough. I sucked and breathed and repeated, and was certain that by the time I turned around, the old woman who had appeared in my apartment would be gone.
Yes, of course, she would be gone, I thought, looking out toward the massive apartment edifice before me with its glass facade and covered balconies and awnings and doorman. Yes, this was the real world. The physical world. A world where ghosts did not exist. Ghosts would not even be allowed in Beverly Hills, if Beverly Hills had any say in it. Ghosts were something out of…Hollywood.
And so, as I turned away from the balcony, I was certain that whatever I had seen—or imagined—would be gone. Samantha and I would have a good laugh over this during drinks later. Maybe I should see a shrink, I thought, and, as I turned, I felt the now-familiar buzz on my skin, and there she was, standing there in my living room, rising and falling on the unseen tides of time and space, watching me serenely.
My heart sank...but I was excited, too. “You’re Peter’s mother,” I realized, when I stepped back into the living room from the balcony.
“Yes, dear.”
“You gave me the book.”
“Of course.”
She spoke calmly, patiently, with no inflection in her voice and no gestures, either. She could have been a projected image in my room. Except that her eyes and head followed my movements.
“Why did you give me the book?”
“I sense potential in you,” she said. “A lot of potential.”
“But you’re dead.”
“I’ve never been more alive, child.”
“I need to sit down,” I said. “Wait. I need more wine.”
I got the wine, aware that she was watching me carefully, aware that I was already getting used to the light buzzing of static electricity on my skin.
Soon, I was back on the couch, sitting opposite a ghost who was still standing in my living room. Still drifting and floating and staring at me.
“You are dead, right?” I asked. I’d never sounded crazier in my life.
“I passed on a number of years ago, yes.”
“So, how...how are you here now?”
I knew something of ghosts, thanks to all those damn ghost documentaries I’d seen. Ghosts needed to draw on energy to materialize. The buzzing...
“You’re drawing on my energy,” I said
.
And now, for the first time, she smiled. Also, for the first time, I saw some color appear on her lips. Faint red lips. I knew what this meant. She was getting stronger, filling out, so to speak. From me.
Which could explain why I was feeling tired.
“Yes, dear. I am drawing on you.”
Two things occurred to me: one, did she have a right to draw on my energy without asking? And two, had she just read my mind?
“The answer to both is yes, dear,” said the old woman in my living room.
“I’m going to need more wine—”
“Not now, child. I need you fully here, fully aware.”
“This isn’t happening—”
“It is, dear. Stop doubting yourself, or doubting the state of your mental health. Spirits are real. They’re all around you. Every day. I’m real. I’m here now, before you. You know this to be true.”
“Okay, fine. I see you. I hear you. But that doesn’t make this right. Or wrong. You’re a ghost...and you just read my mind.”
“I prefer the term spirit.”
I nearly laughed. “Was I not being politically correct?”
The spirit’s facial expressions didn’t alter. I wondered if they could change. Perhaps that was asking too much of her etheric body to perform the more subtle movements.
“You were not being spiritually correct, dear,” she said, correcting me. “Ghosts are those who have not moved on, those who are stuck on this plane, those who are afraid. Those who are, in general, new souls.”
“So, what does that make you?” I asked.
“A very old soul, child, and so are you.”
As she spoke, another flash of recognition came over me. Yes, I knew her, but not from the car wash. Not even from this life. In fact, I was suddenly certain I knew the old woman very well from another place and time.
I said, “Hello, Millicent.”
Lord, help me.
Chapter Fourteen
I wanted more wine—a lot more wine, in fact—but, after using the bathroom, I resisted the urge to hang a left into the kitchen and, instead, hung a right back into the living room.
Gone was my hope that the old woman would be gone. I was happy that she had not followed me into the bathroom. I just knew she was still in the house because my skin was still buzzing away, still tingling, still doing its groovy thing to alert me that here be ghosts.
And, truth be known, the old lady was right. I did want to remember this. All of it, and I needed to know that what I was seeing was real, and not some alcohol-induced hallucination. If, of course, there was such a thing, which I doubted.
Most important, I wanted to remember, and, yes, I needed my head to be very clear.
She was still there, of course, hovering, watching, waiting. I was briefly tempted to pull out my phone and take a picture of her, or, even better, to film her. But that would have been stupid. The moment I reached for the phone, I suspected she would disappear, and perhaps never reappear again. I didn’t want that. Not now. Not before I knew what the hell was going on, and what she wanted with me.
“You’re wondering why I’m here, Allison?” she said as I sat back down on the couch before her.
“The thought crossed my mind. Which you would know, since you can read my thoughts. And since when could spirits read thoughts, anyway?”
She did not answer at first. She continued standing there, floating, her hands clasped together below her waist. For the first time, I noticed she wore a wedding ring.
After a moment, Millicent said, “You gave me permission, dear. Long ago, in another place and time.”
“Convenient,” I said. “But what if I don’t want you in my head?”
“Then ask me to leave.”
I drummed my fingers on the couch arm. The couch arm was cushioned, so the drumming was mostly muted. “Why are you here?”
“We have unfinished business, dear.”
“Who are you? Who are you really?”
“I am many things, honey. I have been many people. As have you, but one thing has remained constant.”
She didn’t have to explain further, I felt it. I knew it. The electrical tingling morphed into real goose flesh. I shivered. “Friends,” I said. “We’ve always been friends.”
“We’ve been more than friends, dear. We’ve been sisters and daughters and mothers. And, a few times, brothers. Except we didn’t like being brothers very much. Boys aren’t quite as evolved, you see.”
As I stared at her, the words soul mate appeared in my thoughts. I suspected Millicent had placed it there.
“Soul mates?” I repeated.
“In a way, yes, although many incorrectly infer that the word applies to a single soul. In fact, you have many soul mates.”
“And you are one of them?”
“Yes, dear. A very special one. Myself, and one other.”
“One other? A man?”
“Not in this life, no.”
“Another woman?”
“Yes.”
“Great. I can’t buy a break. Who is she?”
“You’ve met her, dear.”
I knew exactly who she talking about. My latest friend. My freaky new friend, in fact. Made sense. Samantha Moon and I had hit it off immediately. From the get-go, she’d felt like the sister I’d never had, even as she drank from me.
I focused on the spirit before me. “Were we, um, ever lovers?”
She shook her head and smiled. I might have actually blushed. That was a new one: blushing while talking to a ghost. “No, dear. Never lovers. Friends and siblings. There is, let’s say, another soul group that’s reserved for our physical intimacy.”
“My head hurts.”
“I imagine it does.”
“But I didn’t know you in this life,” I said. “I didn’t know you or your son, or your granddaughter.” A granddaughter, I knew, who had been murdered.
“Not physically, no.”
“Which is why you are coming to me now...like this.”
“One of the reasons,” she said.
“And what’s the other reason?”
“I can instruct you better from the spirit world.”
“Instruct me in what?”
She smiled and looked down at the table. At the Wicca instructional manual that was still sitting there, placed there by her, in fact.
“In witchcraft?” I asked.
“In Earth-based magic, dear. I prefer to call it Earth magic.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“I’m here to remind you, Allison, of what you really are.”
“And what am I?”
“You are, of course, a witch.”
Chapter Fifteen
I needed wine. Badly.
So, despite Millicent’s earlier admonition—and, last I checked, wasn’t she a friggin’ ghost?—I got up and poured myself a healthy dose of wine. This was, of course, just far too much for me to deal with without at least a little alcohol. Okay, maybe a lot. Wine calmed me. I loved having it in my hand. I found it comforting. Also, I loved the taste of it.
When I sat back down, Millicent, amazingly, looked different. Younger.
She answered my unspoken question for me. “I wasn’t always an old woman, you see.”
“Suit yourself.” I drank deeply from the wine. I sensed Millicent’s disapproval. I ignored her disapproval.
“Are you comfortable, dear?” she asked.
“I am,” I said, and held up the wine. “Now that I have this.”
“I do not understand the need for inebriation.”
“Then you don’t understand me.”
“I know you very well, dear. And never before have you been so interested in alcohol.”
I held up the wineglass again. “Welcome to the new me.”
“Very well,” she said. “I need to tell you that I’m here for another reason, too.”
“Fire away.”
She looked down at her mostly solid hands. I could have b
een wrong, but she seemed to be growing younger and younger with each sip of wine. Mid-fifties now, I’d say.
She said, “I’m here to also help my son.”
“Peter?”
“Yes. He’s stuck on this tragedy, unable to move on. Unable to deal with the loss of his daughter. He needs answers. He needs help.”
I thought about her words, drumming my longish nails against the wineglass. The clicking was peculiarly loud in my little apartment. Something wasn’t sitting right with me here, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“That’s the wine, dear,” said Millicent. “Clouds your thinking.”
“Oh, put a cork in it,” I said, and laughed at my own pun.
“What’s troubling you, dear, is that a part of you thinks that, in spirit, I have all the answers.”
I snapped my fingers and pointed at her, nearly spilling my wine in the process. “That’s it. You are in spirit. You can appear in my home, his home, and God knows where else. For all I know, you can speak directly to Penny herself and ask who the killer was.” I was on a roll. “Hell, you could probably speak to God himself. Why do you need me to provide any answers?”
“I must remain at a distance, dear.”
“Even so, now a killer walks the streets. A killer you might very well know the identity of?” It might be the wine talking—yes, I’d now drunk about half of the glass—but the idea of Millicent knowing full well who the killer was and keeping this information from her son, who was clearly struggling with his daughter’s murder, was appalling to me.
“Do not be too appalled, dear. It is the nature of the physical world you live in.”
“What the devil does that mean?”
“It means, that not all answers to all problems are given to you. Or to my son. In the mortal life, you must seek answers.”
“But you are here, trying to help him through me.”
“I am still his mother, and he is my troubled son.”
“Who decides these things?” I asked. I stood deftly, managing not to spill my drink, which was getting easier and easier to do as the contents drew lower to the bottom. “I mean, who decides that you can’t help your son? Or, for that matter, why don’t spirits help all of us know more? Surely, one of you up there knows where Jimmy Hoffa was buried, or who really shot Kennedy, or who’s responsible for every unsolved murder case out there. What gives? Why the secrecy? Why are we left to struggle and writhe and stumble in the dark?”