Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  All this came to mind again as we rode down the bumpy road looking for the old Connors house.

  A smallish one-story farm house was pointed out to us by an elderly man working beside the road. It turned out to be a Connors house all right, but the wrong Connors. Our Connors were farther down the road, and finally we found the house that fit Maloney’s description and map.

  Someone had evidently just moved in recently and was in the process of fixing it up. This activity had not yet extended to the garden around the house, which was lovely in its wild ways, totally untouched by human hands for years, evidently.

  There was a broad iron gate closing off the garden from the road. The sun was not so high any more and the picture was one of utmost peace and tranquillity. Carefully —for there are more dogs in Ireland than anywhere else in the world—carefully I opened the gate and walked towards the house. My feet sank into the wet ground but I carried on. At the door I was greeted by a young woman in her late twenties who bid us welcome in the typical Irish country way of welcoming a stranger. Catherine and Sybil came along a moment later, and we had a look at what was once the haunted house of the Connors.

  “Mrs. Healy,” I began, “you moved in here a few days ago. This used to be the Connors house—am I right?”

  “That is correct,” she replied in almost brogue-free speech. “It is a pretty old house, but it has been reconditioned recently.”

  The house was a happy one to her; at any rate neither she nor her husband nor their small child had noticed anything unusual—yet.

  Sybil stepped inside the house now. It was really nothing more than a smallish kitchen, a hall, and a bedroom, all on the same floor. Immediately she felt in another era.

  “When the woman was talking to you just now,” Sybil said, “I heard another voice. A man’s voice. It’s a strong voice, but I can’t understand it.”

  “Is it Gaelic?” I asked.

  “I should think so. It’s the inflection of the voice that is peculiar to me. It is a hard, strong voice. There is water connected with this place.”

  “Any tragedy?”

  “The man is connected with it. Turn of the century. He had some trouble with his head, probably due to a blow. The injury affected his life very drastically. Ultimately led to his death, but was not immediately responsible for it. A very angry person, I’d say.”

  We did not want to overstay our welcome at the farm house, so I thanked Mrs. Healy for letting us visit.

  “There is just one more thing,” she said pensively. “You see this gate over there?” We nodded, for I had admired it from the start.

  “Well,” Mrs. Healy said somewhat sheepishly, “no matter how often I close it, it just does not want to stay closed.”

  * * *

  The afternoon was growing slowly old, and we still had two other places to visit. We drove back through Listowel and out the other end, following Patrick Maloney’s crudely drawn map. Nobody in Listowel could direct us towards the monument at the crossroads we were seeking, and we wasted an hour going up and down wrong country roads. It is not easy to get directions in the Irish countryside, for few people know more than their immediate neighborhood. Finally we hit paydirt. Ahead of us there was a crossroad that seemed to fit Maloney’s description, with the wooded area on one side. But no Celtic cross in sight!

  I was puzzled. Leaving Sybil with Catherine in the car, I set out on foot to explore the land beyond the road. About twenty yards inside the area, I suddenly came upon the monument. Our driver, whose name was Sylvester, also was puzzled. He had never heard of such a monument in this place. But there it was, set back from prying eyes, a gray-white stone wall, about two feet high, beyond which stood a tall Celtic cross. Before the cross were three graves, inscribed only in Gaelic. Beyond the graves the hill sloped gently towards the faraway Kerry Coast.

  The weather had become rainy and dark clouds were hanging overhead.

  I asked Sybil to come forward now, and before she had a chance to look at the marble plaques on the ground, I asked for her impressions at this shrine.

  “There is peace here, but only on the outside. On my right there seems to be an old building in the distance. I feel it is connected with this spot. It is a tragic, desperate spot, with a lot of unhappiness, helplessness—something had to happen here. There is mental torture.”

  “Did anyone die here?” I said. Sybil stepped forward and looked at the graves.

  “Yes,” she replied immediately, “as you see yourself the inscriptions are in Gaelic and I don’t understand Gaelic, but I think this was forty years ago, between forty and fifty years ago—there was fighting, and it was unexpected. Coming again from the right of me, some mortal conflict involving death of several people—”

  “How many people?”

  “I can see two,” Sybil replied, and it occurred to me at once that she had no knowledge of the fact that two I.R.A. men had perished at this spot.

  “Are there any presences here still?”

  “The two, because these are the people that I feel. Why, I don’t know, but again, the building on my right seems to interest the people and myself. Two men. Perhaps they’re only guarding something. Something to watch in this area, always watching the countryside. Perhaps they had to watch the countryside and still must do so!”

  “Quite,” I said, thinking of the detail the patrol had been assigned—to watch the countryside.

  Sybil closed her eyes for a moment.

  “Why are they still here, so long after?” I inquired.

  “Yes,” she replied, “it is still of importance to them in this time and place, as it was then.”

  “But there is peace in the country now.”

  “I don’t think there is peace in this particular part of the country,” Sybil countered, and I knew, of course, that the I.R.A. is far from dead, especially in the rural areas.

  “Do you get any names for these men?”

  “No, but I can describe them to you. One is a broad-set man, and he has a rough face, country man, or forced to take to the country, not well kept, must have been hiding; he has a thick neck, and very brown eyes, perhaps five feet eight. There is someone with him, not related, but they’ve been together for some time. The building on the right has some connection with them.”

  There was a small house on the hill about a hundred yards farther back from the road.

  “What outfits are these men in, Sybil?”

  “I don’t see uniforms,” she replied, “very ordinary dress, trousers.”

  “Are they regular soldiers?”

  “No—ordinary clothes of about forty-five years ago.”

  That would make it 1920—pretty close to the year 1918 in which Patrick Maloney had had his ghostly experience here.

  “Are they serving any kind of outfit other than military?”

  “Serving something, but I don’t know what. No uniforms, but they are serving.”

  “How are they then serving, by what means?”

  “Something noisy. I think they’ve been shot. One in the shoulder, near the heart.”

  “Can we help them in any way?”

  “Somehow this place is…as if someone must always watch from here. This watching must go on. I don’t know why they have to watch. They do.”

  “Are they aware of the present?”

  “I don’t think so. The one I described is more in evidence than the other. Perhaps he was leading. There is a need for silence here.”

  I then asked Sybil to inform the two men that the war was long over and they should return home to their families, that in fact, they were relieved of duty.

  Sybil told them this, and that the crossroads were now safe. They had done their job well.

  “Any reaction?” I asked after a moment.

  “The main man still stands,” Sybil reported, “but the other one is gone now.”

  Again, I asked Sybil to send the man away.

  “Patrick is his name,” Sybil said, and later I checked the
name in the largest panel on the ground—Padraic it was.

  A moment later, Sybil added: “I think he goes to the right now—what was to the right?”

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully.

  Half a mile up the hill, the ruined house stood silently.

  “That’s where they had to go back to. He is gone now. There is nothing.”

  And so it is that the two ghostly I.R.A. men finally went home on extended leave.

  * 128

  The Last Ride

  CORONADO BEACH IS A pleasant seaside resort in southern California not far from San Diego. You get there by ferry from the mainland and the ride itself is worth the trip. It takes about fifteen minutes, then you continue by car or on foot into a town of small homes, none grand, none ugly—pleasantly bathed by the warm California sunshine, vigorously battered on the oceanside by the Pacific, and becalmed on the inside of the lagoon by a narrow body of water.

  The big thing in Coronado Beach is the U.S. Navy; either you’re in it and are stationed here, or you work for them in one way or another: directly, as a civilian, or indirectly by making a living through the people who are in the Navy and who make their homes here.

  Mrs. Francis Jones is the wife of an advertising manager for a Sidney, Ohio, newspaper, who had returned to Coronado after many years in the Midwest. She is a young woman with a college background and above-average intelligence, and has a mixed Anglo-Saxon and Austrian background. Her father died a Navy hero while testing a dive bomber, making her mother an early widow.

  Gloria Jones married fairly young, and when her husband took a job as advertising manager in Sidney, Ohio, she went right along with him. After some years, the job became less attractive, and the Joneses moved right back to Coronado where Jones took up work for the Navy.

  They have a thirteen-year-old daughter, Vicki, and live a happy, well-adjusted life; Mr. Jones collects coins and Mrs. Jones likes to decorate their brick house surrounded by a garden filled with colorful flowers.

  One January, Mrs. Jones sought me out to help her understand a series of most unusual events that had taken place in her otherwise placid life. Except for an occasional true dream, she had not had any contact with the psychic and evinced no interest whatever in it until the events that so disturbed her tranquility had come to pass. Even the time she saw her late father in a white misty cloud might have been a dream. She was only ten years old at the time, and preferred later to think it was a dream. But the experiences she came to see me about were not in that category. Moreover, her husband and a friend were present when some of the extraordinary happenings took place.

  Kathleen Duffy was the daughter of a man working for the Convair company. He was a widower and Kathleen was the apple of his eye. Unfortunately the apple was a bit rotten in spots; Kathleen was a most difficult child. Her father had sent her away to a Catholic school for girls in Oceanside, but she ran away twice; after the second time she had to be sent to a home for “difficult” children.

  Gloria Jones met Kathleen when both were in their teens. Her mother was a widow and Mr. Duffy was a widower, so the parents had certain things in common. The two girls struck up a close friendship and they both hoped they might become sisters through the marriage of their parents, but it did not happen.

  When Kathleen was sent away to the Anthony Home, a reform school at San Diego, Gloria was genuinely sorry. That was when Kathleen was about sixteen years of age. Although they never met again, Kathleen phoned Gloria a few times. She wasn’t happy in her new environment, of course, but there was little that either girl could do about it.

  In mounting despair, Kathleen tried to get away again but did not succeed. Then one day, she and her roommate, June Robeson, decided to do something drastic to call attention to their dissatisfied state. They set fire to their room in the hope that they might escape in the confusion of the fire.

  As the smoke of the burning beds started to billow heavier and heavier, they became frightened. Their room was kept locked at all times, and now they started to bang at the door, demanding to be let out.

  The matron came and surveyed the scene. The girls had been trouble for her all along. She decided to teach them what she thought would be an unforgettable “lesson.” It was. When Kathleen collapsed from smoke inhalation, the matron finally opened the door. The Robeson girl was saved, but Kathleen Duffy died the next day in the hospital.

  When the matter became public, the local newspapers demanded an investigation of the Anthony Home. The matron and the manager of the Home didn’t wait for it. They fled to Mexico and have never been heard from since.

  Gradually, Gloria began to forget the tragedy. Two years went by and the image of the girlfriend receded into her memory.

  One day she and another friend, a girl named Jackie Sudduth, went standing near the waterfront at Coronado, a sunny, wind-swept road from which you can look out onto the Pacific or back toward the orderly rows of houses that make up Coronado Beach.

  The cars were whizzing by as the two girls stood idly gazing across the road. One of the cars coming into view was driven by a young man with a young girl next to him who seemed familiar to Gloria. She only saw her from the shoulders up, but as the car passed close by she knew it was Kathleen. Flabbergasted, she watched the car disappear.

  “Did you know that girl?” her friend Jackie inquired.

  “No, why?”

  “She said your name,” her friend reported.

  Gloria nodded in silence. She had seen it too. Without uttering a sound, the girl in the passing car had spelled the syllables “Glo-ri-a” with her lips.

  For weeks afterward, Gloria could not get the incident out of her mind. There wasn’t any rational explanation, and yet how could it be? Kathleen had been dead for two years.

  The years went by, then a strange incident brought the whole matter back into her consciousness. It was New Year’s Eve, twelve years later. She was now a married woman with a daughter. As she entered her kitchen, she froze in her tracks: a bowl was spinning counterclockwise while moving through the kitchen of its own volition.

  She called out to her husband and daughter to come quickly. Her daughter’s girlfriend, Sheryl Konz, age thirteen, was first to arrive in the kitchen. She also saw the bowl spinning. By the time Mr. Jones arrived, it had stopped its most unusual behavior.

  Over dinner, topic A was the self-propelled bowl. More to tease her family than out of conviction, Mrs. Jones found herself saying, “If there is anyone here, let the candle go out.” Promptly the candle went out.

  There was silence after that, for no current of air was present that could have accounted for the sudden extinguishing of the candle.

  The following summer, Mrs. Jones was making chocolate pudding in her kitchen. When she poured it into one of three bowls, the bowl began to turn—by itself. This time her husband saw it too. He explained it as vibrations from a train or a washing machine next door. But why did the other two bowls not move also?

  Finally wondering if her late friend Kathleen, who had always been a prankster, might not be the cause of this, she waited for the next blow.

  On New Year’s Day that following year, she took a Coke bottle out of her refrigerator, and set it down on the counter. Then she turned her back on it and went back to the refrigerator for some ice. This took only a few moments. When she got back to the counter, the Coke bottle had disappeared.

  Chiding herself for being absent-minded, she assumed she had taken the bottle with her to refrigerator and had left it inside. She checked and there was no Coke.

  “Am I going out of my mind?” she wondered, and picked up the Coke carton. It contained five bottles. The sixth bottle was never found.

  Since these latter incidents took place during the three years when they lived in Sidney, Ohio, it was evident that the frisky spirit of Kathleen Duffy could visit them anywhere they went—if that is who it was.

  In late May of that year, back again in Coronado, both Mr. and Mrs. Jones saw the bre
ad jump out of the breadbox before their very eyes. They had locked the breadbox after placing a loaf of bread inside. A moment later, they returned to the breadbox and found it open. While they were still wondering how this could be, the bread jumped out.

  A practical man, Mr. Jones immediately wondered if they were having an earthquake. They weren’t. Moreover, it appeared that their neighbors’ breadboxes behaved normally.

  They shook their heads once more. But this time Mrs. Jones dropped me a letter.

  On June 3, I went to San Diego to see the Joneses. Sybil Leek and I braved the bus ride from Santa Ana on a hot day, but the Joneses picked us up at the bus terminal and drove us to the Anthony Home where Kathleen had died so tragically.

  Naturally Sybil was mystified about all this, unless her ESP told her why we had come. Consciously, she knew nothing.

  When we stopped at the Home, we found it boarded up and not a soul in sight. The day was sunny and warm, and the peaceful atmosphere belied the past that was probably filled with unhappy memories. After the unpleasant events that had occurred earlier, the place had been turned into a school for mentally challenged children and run as such for a number of years. At present, however, it stood abandoned.

  Sybil walked around the grounds quietly and soaked up the mood of the place.

  “I heard something, maybe a name,” she suddenly said. “It sounds like Low Mass.”

  Beyond that, she felt nothing on the spot of Kathleen’s unhappy memories. Was it Kathleen who asked for a Low Mass to be said for her? Raised a strict Catholic, such a thought would not be alien to her.