Shadow of a Life

by Mute80

  Nick reached over and picked up the photo. “That’s exactly how I remember the Goodwins looking when I first met all of you. You look a little young, though, Sophia.”

  “There’s more,” I said. “Remember in the letter I just read that an unopened trunk was mentioned?”

  “Yes,” Sophia and Nick spoke together.

  “I think it might be in my dad’s closet.” I motioned toward the closed door of the den.

  Sophia’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”

  “Dad said he put an old trunk that belonged to my mom’s family in there when we moved into the house. He’s never opened it so he doesn’t know what’s in there. I don’t think my mom has ever opened it either.”

  “What are we waiting for? Let’s get that thing out of the closet.” Nick jumped up.

  Peter, Camille, and I stayed in our chairs.

  “First, we need to know how to protect ourselves,” Peter said.

  “What?” Nick’s confused look returned.

  “What if we meet up with the Goodwins again and this time they aren’t so friendly?”

  Nick sat back down slowly. “What do you want to know?”

  “Sophia, you once told me that you could hurt me, but I couldn’t hurt you. Is that true in all circumstances?” I asked.

  “Usually, but I guess there are exceptions. When a ghost is in its human form, it can feel pain, but in a muted way. For instance, if you were to shoot me I would feel it, but it wouldn’t be like the extreme pain you would feel because it would heal so quickly. If you were to gun me down with a machine gun, it would hurt a lot worse because it would be continuous jolts of pain until you stopped.”

  I cringed. “A machine gun? Where am I supposed to get one of those?”

  “Jamie, I’m not saying that’s what you have to do. I was just using it as an example. Something that would kill or seriously injure you is just a momentary pain for a ghost. It just stalls them for a little bit. But remember, that’s only if they’re in their human form. If we’re in our ghost form, nothing hurts. It’s like we’re just made of air or something.”

  “Okay. I guess that makes sense. So as long as we attack the Goodwins in their human form we should be okay?” Peter asked.

  Nick cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not necessarily. If they were under attack, they’d just vanish into their ghost form and then you’re the one in trouble because you won’t know where they are. Besides, how and why do you plan on attacking them, Peter?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I just think those of us who are still living are getting kind of tired of not knowing what to expect.”

  Sophia frowned. “I’m sorry I dragged all of you into this giant mess.”

  I jumped in. “Don’t get us wrong. We’re happy to help and it’s been an adventurous couple of weeks, but we just need to know what to expect.”

  “Well, if we’re going to get revenge on the Goodwins we have to get them where it hurts. Sophia, what would you say matters most to them?” Nick asked.

  “Money—hands down,” she answered without any hesitation.

  “Okay. Knowing them as much as I did, I would have to agree with you on that one. Other than trying to track you down for the last fifty or sixty years, we don’t really know what they’ve been up to. I would assume they’re probably still conning people because that’s what they do best. It’s probably a lot easier when they can vanish into thin air, too, so I would assume they’re doing pretty well for themselves.”

  “Is there something in the past that involved either of you and their money?” I asked.

  “Not that I can think of. I was the low man on the Mist Seeker’s crew. I didn’t get paid enough to really make a difference to Jeremiah,” Nick answered.

  “And I didn’t get Jack Squat from them, so I doubt they’re mad about that,” Sophia added.

  “If either of you remember anything, please tell the rest of us.”

  They both nodded.

  The five of us entered Dad’s den. I doubt if that many people had ever been in the little room at one time before. In fact, I don’t know if Camille had ever even been in past the entrance in all the years I’d lived in the house. Sometimes when she was over we would poke our heads in to talk to my dad, but we didn’t usually make ourselves at home in there.

  Once our group was in the den I headed straight for the double-doors of the closet behind his big wooden desk. I think the room was originally intended to be an additional bedroom, but there were no bathrooms on the lower floor and we didn’t need any more rooms, so naturally it became Dad’s den. I opened the closet, revealing Dad’s overflowing bookcases, sagging from the weight they bore. They were filled with books, which would usually excite me, but Dad’s books were about business, management, ethics, and other boring stuff. I never read any of his books.

  “Dad said the trunk was in the back of the closet behind the bookshelves.” I stepped forward and peered into the space. I turned my cell phone on and aimed its light toward the right side of the closet. I saw nothing but bare wall. I aimed it toward the left side and there, behind the bookcase, I could just make out a large object half buried in books. It had to be the trunk.

  “It’s here,” I squealed.

  “Pull it out,” Nick replied.

  “Yeah, right. We’re going to have to take this whole bookcase out first,” I sighed.

  “Really?” Camille whined. “I just painted my nails this morning.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Unless you can squeeze yourself back there and open it up, we have to move the bookcase.”

  It didn’t take very long for five people to relieve the shelves of their books. We made sure to leave the books stacked in order of where they went on the shelves. Dad arranged his books alphabetically and I wanted them returned just as he had left them. Once the shelves were clear, Peter and Nick were able to slowly inch the bookcase forward until they could get on either side of it to push and pull it out into the den. As soon as they were clear of the doorway I slid past them and into the back of the closet. Sure enough, a big black trunk was in the very back corner. It was bigger than I’d expected. A person could stuff a lot of things into something that size. I grabbed the books piled on top of it and handed them back out through the doorway like an assembly line until the lid of the chest was completely clear.

  “That’s definitely their trunk.” Sophia said as she stepped in behind me.

  “Really? You can tell that even in the dark?” My heart was racing.

  “Yes. They brought it with us every time we moved. It used to be in their bedroom when we lived in the house where I met Nick, although I think Jeremiah might have taken it with him after he restored the Mist Seeker.”

  “He did,” Nick said, squeezing in behind Sophia. “I remember because I had to haul the dang thing onto the ship.”

  “If you look in the lower left corner, you’ll see the initials JG,” Sophia added.

  I fell to my knees in front of the trunk and again aimed the light from my cell phone toward it. There, on the bottom left corner, was a little brass plate engraved with the letters ‘J’ and ‘G’. I felt like the drumroll that had been going on in my head ever since my dad mentioned the trunk that morning had finally come to its climatic end and the cymbals were crashing.

  “This is it,” I yelled and jumped up. “We’ve got to get it out of here. We can open it in the living room because there is no way five of us are going to fit in this closet.”

  I stepped back out so that Peter and Nick could again work magic with their muscles. I was sure they didn’t mind showing them off for us.

  “Does it feel heavy or do you think it’s empty?” I asked, hovering closely behind them while they ungracefully made their way out of the den and into the living room.

  “It’s definitely heavy,” Peter grunted.

  “Maybe for mere mortals like yourself,” Nick teased.

  The two guys carefully
set the trunk in the middle of the living room floor and us girls were on it in a second.

  “It’s locked,” Camille said. “Maybe that means it’s still never been opened.”

  I rattled the padlock of the trunk. It was old, but very thick and sturdy. There was no way we were getting into that thing without some tools. I ran to the garage with Peter and we rummaged through Dad’s things. He wasn’t the world’s best handyman, but he owned the basics. We managed to find a crowbar and a hammer and ran back inside. I let Nick and Peter take over from there and they pounded and beat at the stupid thing for what seemed like forever. Finally, after half an hour of failed attempts, the lock broke off and we leapt toward the trunk.

  “You open it, Sophia,” I urged. “It belonged to your parents . . . sort of.”

  “As you discovered, they’re more closely related to you than me,” she winked.

  Sophia knelt in front of the trunk and pulled the remaining piece of the padlock out of the latch. “Here we go,” she said breathily as Camille took a step back. I think she expected something to jump out at her.

  Covering the contents of the trunk was a gray woolen blanket. Sophia pulled it off and tossed it to the ground. Like marionettes being controlled by some unseen hand, we all leaned forward and peered in. One by one Sophia began to remove things. There were a couple of well-worn changes of clothing for a man and a woman first. Then, out came a pair of tarnished silver candlesticks—closely followed by a silver serving tray.

  “I don’t remember these. Elsa must have gotten them after I died,” Sophia remarked and set them on the coffee table. It fascinated me how casually she talked of death.

  Next she pulled out a family bible that looked as if it had never been opened. “We weren’t the best churchgoers back then. I think that made some people mistrust us.”

  “Really? Not the fact that Jeremiah cheated everyone?” Nick pretended to be shocked.

  I turned the book over and flipped through the pages of the bible, hoping something would fall out just like the picture of Sophia had fallen from the photo album up in the attic. No such luck.

  There were a few names and dates printed in the back cover, including the name of Jeremiah Goodwin and his date of birth. Some sort of genealogy had been recorded there. I knew with that information I would probably be able to figure out exactly how I was related to Jeremiah and Elsa if I wanted to. I set it on the coffee table next to the candlesticks figuring I could always look at it later.

  I turned back to Sophia and saw that she had pulled out a packet of some sort. It was wrapped in cloth and tied with string. She set it on the floor carefully, gently untied it, and slowly pulled back the fabric. It was more letters.

  “Do you want to read these now or wait until we’ve emptied the trunk?” Sophia asked.

  “Now,” Camille yelled.

  We all turned and stared at her.

  “I’m sorry, but this is intense. You’ve got to read them before I explode.”

  Nick chuckled and took the packet from Sophia. He gingerly flipped through the aged paper. The letters were in even worse shape than the ones we’d pulled out of the attic the day before.

  “These are really old,” he said.

  “I know—we can tell,” Camille responded anxiously.

  “No. I mean these are really old. I think they’re in order of dates. Look at this one, it’s dated 1718. Here’s one from 1712. And look at this one—1692,” he said as he slipped the bottom letter from the stack.

  “Let me see,” I said as I reached for the letter. “Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever held anything this old.”

  “That’s more than a hundred years before Jeremiah and Elsa were even born. Go ahead and read it, Jamie, but I doubt it’s going to have anything to do with us,” Sophia said.

  I carefully unfolded the brittle paper and began to read. I struggled as some of the ink was faded and the script was a flowing, fancy kind that I wasn’t used to interpreting.

  Dearest Catherine,

  I am afrayd that Things have taken a Turn for the worse. I now feare for my Life as many before Me did as well. As much as it hurts Me, I do not wish you to be invollved any more than you already have been in my Affayrs so I will no longer have any Contact with you. I have hidden It all and left Instrucshuns for you. Do with It what you will. Please know that I am sorry for any Harm you may come upon because of your Invollvement with Me.

  Love, your dearest Friend, H

  “H? Who is H? And who is Catherine?” I asked.

  “I have no idea. I doubt it really matters though, they lived way before my time.”

  “It matters a lot more than you think.” I whirled around as the gruff voice spoke from behind me. There was a loud scream that echoed again and again. I think it was Camille, but I couldn’t know for sure because I was screaming in my head and for all I knew the sound was actually coming from my throat.

  I watched in paralyzing fear as Jeremiah and Elsa slowly appeared before us. Camille was huddled in the corner with her head buried in her knees in the blink of an eye. Peter grabbed my hand and pulled me with him, as far back as we could get in the room. Jeremiah and Elsa blocked our exit. Sophia was still kneeling in front of the trunk when Nick jumped in front of everyone with his arms out, as if to protect us all.

  There was fire in Jeremiah’s eyes and Elsa had a smug look of satisfaction on her face. Both were brandishing pistols and I felt myself going weak in the knees. Peter put his arm around me and held me tight.

  “What do you want from us?” Sophia yelled. “You ruined my life. Why can’t you just stay away?”

  “I want what’s rightfully mine, you ungrateful little wench,” Elsa yelled back.

  “Ungrateful? Are you serious? You murdered my parents.”

  “If it wasn’t for us you would have died out in that ocean right along with them,” Elsa spat back.

  “If it weren’t for you we would have happily finished our journey to Italy and I would have been raised by my real parents along with my brother. You raised me as your daughter, why don’t you care about me now?” Sophia grew bolder and rose to her feet. Nick stuck out his arm and held her behind him. For a brief moment, Elsa looked hurt, as if she actually might care about something.

  “And you, Nicholas Trenton,” Jeremiah put in. “I trusted you, gave you a great job, and how did you repay me? By secretly planning to steal our daughter away from us. I guess you got what was coming to you, though, didn’t you?” He nudged Elsa and laughed.

  I felt like I stood in the presence of pure evil. Camille still sobbed in the corner, her hands covering her eyes. I don’t know if she ever even looked up. I had no idea how we were going to get ourselves out of the situation. No one was around to wonder where Peter was, Dad wouldn’t be home until the next day, and Camille’s parents probably wouldn’t try to contact her for at least a few more hours.

  “Do you realize how long we’ve been trying to track you down?” Elsa continued.

  Sophia didn’t say anything.

  “We heard rumors in the ghost world that the poor little girl lost on the Mary Celeste had actually survived and was living as a ghost. Oh, how tragic.” Elsa cupped her hands over her heart in mock pain.

  “You’re one hard girl to find, missy,” Jeremiah threw in.

  Elsa ignored him as she continued speaking. “We obviously can’t kill you again. We should have done that the first time we had a chance. So . . . we’ll make a deal with you.”

  “A deal?” Sophia hissed.

  “Yes. You give back what you stole from us and you’ll never have to see us again. You can keep living in your happy little world with your little ghost boyfriend and you’ll never have to cross paths with us again, which would make us very, very happy.”

  “What could I possibly have stolen from you?”

  “Stop playing dumb and tell us where you put the map,” Jeremiah bellowed.

  Camille started sobbing in the corner again and Peter tightened his grip
on me.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sophia was almost hysterical as Jeremiah moved toward her. Nick stretched his neck and puffed out his chest. It didn’t matter that there was a size difference—there was no way Jeremiah would get through him to Sophia.

  “How ’bout I make you tell me?” Jeremiah swung his arm around and raised it, aiming his pistol right at Camille huddled in the corner.

  “Nooo.” I was the one screaming for sure that time and I tried to jump toward her. Peter wouldn’t let go of me and I pounded on his chest, trying to break free from his grasp.

  “Or, maybe I should get rid of your little friend over here. If she really is your soul saver, you’ll never be able to leave your crappy existence.” That time Jeremiah swung his pistol arm around and aimed it right at me. I’d never felt such terror in my life and I shook uncontrollably. Peter continued to hang on tight, holding me in a bear hug.

  “Let’s just all calm down for a minute,” Nick cut in. “Maybe if Sophia knew what you were looking for she could give it to you and then you could be on your way. Everyone’s emotions are high right now. Let’s just talk about this like reasonable people.”

  “Reasonable people don’t steal other people’s stuff,” Elsa muttered.

  “Really? You’re going to say that to me after you spent your whole life conning people out of their hard-earned money?” Sophia was flabbergasted.

  Nick took Sophia’s hand and kissed her on the forehead. Then, he turned back to Jeremiah and Elsa. “What kind of map are you looking for?”

  “The map that was with that letter you just read,” Jeremiah said angrily.

  Nick came over and took the letter from me. I gladly relinquished it to him. He unfolded it and showed it to the Goodwins. He then turned the envelope upside down and showed them that it was empty.

  “Obviously the map’s not in there. She took it years ago.” Elsa jabbed her thumb toward Sophia.

  “This is the first time I’ve ever seen that stupid letter. I have no idea who Catherine or ‘H’ even are,” Sophia said.