It didn’t work out exactly the way I wanted, not at first. That day’s pay was more than I saw again in a month of trying, but I had to learn the trade and I made enough to keep me going. I could do the research in local libraries, which cost me nothing.
Well, this story isn’t going the way I thought it would. As I seem to be passing on my years of wisdom after all, I’m going to tell you the best bit and let you judge if your job is anywhere near as much fun. Are you ready? This is the good part. If you work for a sandwich shop, you’ll never starve. If you visit widows, you get a surprising amount of postfuneral sex. There is no greater aphrodisiac than grief. From experience, I can tell you Day Three is the winner, just when all the relatives have finally asked each other to let her mourn in peace, meaning they really want to get back to their own lives.
I can tell the best ones almost as soon as they open the door, sometimes just by reading the obituary. Big, strong husband gone too soon, sons who live in a different state. Those girls are like pressure cookers, all that raw emotion just waiting to blow. I’m telling you, just seeing the word cancer gave me a rush of blood after a while. Nothing gets the juices going like a long dry spell. Bless their hearts for trying, but cancer guys aren’t up to much in the sack.
It all went wrong, or went right, or changed my world, however the hell you want to say it, when I met the Lady. I still don’t know her name, and if she can talk, she never does to me. It’s usually my curse that I have to deal with women every day. They’re the ones who don’t mind finding a fifty in the purse for a few words and my best soft voice. I can’t say I don’t understand them, like some rummy guy in a bar you might meet. I do understand them. I just don’t like them all that much. They don’t think like us, you know? If it wasn’t for money and sex, I don’t think I’d talk to them at all. Crazy, every last one of them. I grew up with a strict mom, and maybe she turned me against them all, I don’t know. A man might write poetry to them or send flowers, but that doesn’t last for long once he’s cleared the bases, does it? Marriage is just making sure it’s still there when you get the itch and maybe making a warm nest for your kids. You’ll hate yourself for nodding along with me, but you know old Jack Garner speaks the truth. And, no, of course it isn’t my real name. Well, I’ve had it all my life, but it isn’t the one I was born with.
With the Lady, all I get is her blowing in my ears, like the wind. As it happens, that has turned out to be surprisingly useful, but I’ll get to that too. Look, you have to let me tell the story in my own damn way.
In those days, I used to advertise. I still do sometimes, though the rates have gone way up and, frankly, there’s a lot of competition. If the stock markets go down, my business goes up, I don’t know why. Oh, you could probably make some change about sharks feeding on grim times, but the way I see it, I spread a lot of goodwill when people really need it. I’m a philanthropist and, yes, I know what it means. I usually left them smiling. Crying too, but smiling through the tears, mostly.
My method of starting with a local paper and checking the deaths kept me in gas and jackets and paid for the cell phone. But every now and then, maybe if I was starting in a new area, I’d put a couple of ads in the locals. There just isn’t any point buying space in a specialist magazine, so let me save you a few dollars. They’re full of fakes—well, obviously—but the customers you want don’t get Spirit World delivered to their nice mailboxes, you know?
I had the kind of call that still gives me a thrill. I couldn’t tell her age from the phone and there was some kind of accent, I couldn’t tell which. I thought it was maybe Dutch, so I was imagining some big apple-strudel type, maybe with blond braids, just amusing myself with pictures in my head while we talked. I got out my maps and put the phone against my chest while I grinned. Penacook, New Hampshire, some godforsaken place in the middle of Merrimack County. Nice names and not a part of the world I knew that well. I told her it was four hundred miles and that I’d have to default on another job to reach her. I was sounding her out on the money, you know? But she was a good one, for all her funny vowels. I named a price and she just paused a moment, then agreed. No negotiation, which was exactly the sort of client I liked best.
After that, it all went a bit odd. I asked her who she wanted me to reach on the other side and she said, no, she wanted me to get rid of a spirit. She said she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in hearing what it had to say, she just wanted it out of her house.
I nearly told her to call Ghostbusters and put the phone down. I swear, if she hadn’t already agreed to a rate for gas mileage that was just ridiculous, I might have done it. Perhaps I was a bit short that week, I don’t remember, but I told her I’d be there in two days and she clicked her tongue and huffed and then agreed, as if she wasn’t the one who’d come calling. They don’t think like us. They don’t do logical. I had the idea even then that there wasn’t going to be much weeping on my shoulder from that one. I was right too, but then I am a bona fide psychic. I should be right every now and then. Did you notice the Latin? Self-educated, but I could still kick your ass.
Penacook is one of those pretty mill towns, couple hundred years old and proud of it. There’s a river, a few churches with high steeples, and a nice old Civil War memorial, like a thousand other places. I don’t go near the churches, though you’d think we’re in the same basic business, wouldn’t you? It’s all about giving a little hope. I found the address on Fisher Street and took a room at the cheapest hotel I could find to put on the black suit and kill a few hours. What I do doesn’t go so well in bright sunshine. Evening is best, with the shadows growing longer. It makes them just that bit more suggestible, in my experience.
I can tell you I was disappointed when Mrs. Weathers opened the door. She was tall, taller than me even, but there was no sign of blond braids and she was thin and kind of bony. Her hair was near white and she had it scraped back so tight it must have taken years off her face. She took a look up and down the street like she was embarrassed to be seen opening the door to me, then hustled me into the house.
This isn’t even the meat of my story, you know, not really. I always get caught up in the details when I’m thinking about the time I first met the Lady. I can still remember the way the door shut and I still wonder what sort of airlock door Mrs. Weathers had, because the silence was intense. It felt like I’d been wrapped in wool, like the thick carpets soaked up all the noise until I wanted to speak just to be sure it would come out. I recall there was an antique clock as tall as the old girl, but the pendulum didn’t move then or any other time. I guess you would call it tasteful, but I call it rich and my money gland began to squeeze a little.
She made tea and I don’t even need to tell you it was in fine china, right? Cups so delicate I thought I’d break one just by holding it. I was reading everything, getting ready for the spiel, but she didn’t look like my usual customer. No red eyes, no trembling hands, nothing but that flat, blue stare as she watched me sip a cup of imported Assam.
Seems Mrs. Weathers had been in the house for only two months. I already knew she’d been a teacher. I’d seen the framed photo, with a younger version of her in a long skirt, adults at the front, smiling kids behind. It’s the kind of detail I notice, but I let her tell me she had retired from all that and she lived alone. She seemed reluctant to bring up the reason for my being there, so I pushed a bit, laying a hand on her arm in a brief touch as I asked. Funny how often that works. It’s like some sort of trigger.
I was busy revising my fee in my head when she finally got around to telling me about the spirit she wanted gone. I nodded when she talked about dreams of screaming, like we all had them. It was almost like she’d read Spirit World after all, like she had a copy on her dresser with a checklist for ghosts. Cold breezes in a closed room—check. Whispers in her ear—check. Nameless feelings of dread—check. I was beginning to think she lacked imagination, you know? When she said it was strongest in the basement, I stood up like I was excited and as
ked to see. I figured it would take me about an hour to tap walls down there, maybe burn a few feathers and chant my powerful old Arapahoe spirit call: “Eyelie Miggeymou, Miggeymou, Miggeymou. Eyelie Miggeymou, Plutotoo.” Or “I like Mickey Mouse and Pluto too,” if you really know your plains chant. I’d declare the place clean, washed of evil spirits, collect . . . maybe four hundred dollars on top of the expenses and go on my way. The funny thing is that I believed it would work. It’s not difficult to banish something that exists only in someone’s imagination, as long as they believe in you. I truly had no idea back then that there were any kind of spirits at all.
I’ve guessed since that the Lady wanted to leave that house. God alone knows why she took an interest in me. All she had to do was sit tight while I went through some routine, and then I’d have been gone, out of their lives forever.
It wasn’t dark down there at all. It was a nice, modern basement, all painted white, with a bit of water damage in one of the corners. I remember a faint smell of damp in the air and I thought of spores. There wasn’t much else to do, with Mrs. Weathers watching me. Apart from a jumble of old furniture, a reel of hosepipe, and a few boxes, it was just about as unhaunted a place as you can ever imagine, more like an abandoned office space than a door to the other side.
Even so, I take good green dollars as seriously as the next man. I spent the best part of an hour touching each wall, noting the new plaster, running my fingers along every crack. These things just come to me sometimes. You have to give them some kind of ritual, I’ve found. You can’t just stand in the middle and mumble.
I nearly had a heart attack when the Lady blew in my ear that first time. The basement was closed off, with just a slit of a window at ground level, too small even for neighborhood boys to get through. There was no chance of a breeze and this wasn’t some gentle breath I could tell myself I’d imagined. This was exactly like someone blowing hard into my ear and making me jump. I have to say I yelped a bit, but when I turned to Mrs. Weathers, she was way over on the other side, just smiling in that sour way she had.
“That’s the sort of thing I have to live with, Mr. Garner,” she said, all kind of triumphant. “So I’ll be pleased if you’ll cease your tomfoolery and just turn the thing out of my house. That’s if you can.”
I held back from saying she should be damned pleased if anyone wanted to blow in her ear at her age. I was that upset by what had happened.
“Six hundred, with expenses,” I said at last. Best part of a thousand dollars was more than I’d ever asked before. She curled her lip at me, so that I could see yellow teeth.
“Very well, Mr. Garner, but I want results.”
“And I’ll need some privacy. You’ll get what you want, don’t worry about it.” That was me stalling for time. It didn’t help that I felt another blow in my ear as I spoke. I rubbed it and that old bitch gave me a look like she knew exactly what was going on. Which she probably did. I watched her head back up the stairs and found myself alone in that cheery, not-at-all frightening, nicely lit basement.
“Okay,” I said. I remember my heart was tapping away and I felt more than a bit foolish. “If there’s anyone in here, if I’m not just wasting a perfectly good evening, blow in my goddamn ear again, I double dare you.”
Well, she did and I nearly peed my pants. You weren’t there, so don’t tell me it wasn’t scary. I sort of lunged in the same direction and took a couple of steps. She blew in my right ear and I lunged that way, arms flailing like I was in a swarm of hornets. It wouldn’t have looked too dignified, but there was no one watching me.
I found myself close to the far wall and whenever I turned back to the room, I felt the tickle, like she wanted me to stay where I was. I don’t know exactly when I started calling her the Lady, by the way. My first wife used to blow in my ears, and maybe it reminded me of that.
I stood there facing the paint and plaster for a time, chest heaving like I’d been running. You just can’t realize what a surprise the whole thing was. Oh, I’d been talking to the dead for years by then, nodding wisely and passing on whatever vague message of goodwill the client wanted to hear. Actually feeling one, no, interacting with one, well, it was a bit of a shaker and I don’t mean the cabinets with the tiny handles.
I did move about the room, of course. I didn’t just stand where she wanted me to. But she herded me back each time to the same spot, turning me left and right, or blowing on the back of my head to move me forward. I got kind of lost in the game for a time, and if you don’t believe me it’s only because you don’t know how exciting it all was. Over and over, I ended up back at the same piece of painted plaster, new and shining. I could feel the slight pressure on my hair pushing me on, like she wanted me to walk through the damn wall.
“Can’t do it,” I said aloud. “Can you even see there’s a wall there?” I remember thinking about secret passages, maybe an old dungeon where I’d find her bones walled up. I’ve read a bit about the subject, as you can see. I confess I started to get interested, but I had an idea Mrs. Weathers might refuse to pay if I cut a big hole in her wall, so I called her back down.
I was all business again, solemn and troubled.
“I’m feeling her most strongly in this wall,” I said, running my hands along it. “Is there anything behind it? Like another room?”
Weathers shrugged, but for the first time, she looked troubled.
“I don’t know. The previous owners might have bricked something up,” she said. I could see she’d read some of the same thrillers. She brushed at her hair then, exactly as if she’d felt a fly land on her. For the first time, I felt sorry for the old bitch.
“I’m going to need a ball-peen hammer, the biggest you have,” I said. She bit her lip in worry, but at last she nodded and went away to fetch one. I could feel the steady pressure on my head as I faced the wall, and I began to realize how damn irritating it would be to live with something like that. Not six hundred dollars irritating, not to me, but Weathers looked like she could spare it without much lost sleep.
When she came back with the hammer, I went at it like a teamster, walloping that drywall until it fell away and then really getting going on the bricks behind it. It’s funny, I would have done a lot less damage if I’d been using my eyes a bit more. It took me a while to see there were two bricks that didn’t match the rest. I’d been thinking of secret rooms, Al Capone’s treasure, who knows what else. It was only when I found plastic sheeting and raw earth behind my hole that I stood back, sweating. Damp-proofing is not that sinister, and I had a nasty feeling I had just worked myself out of a fee. I took a better look at those bricks then. With all the hammering, they were already loose enough to pull out.
I noticed that Weathers still stood on the stairs, like she was afraid to come into the room. I could feel her staring as I worked the bricks out and put them on the floor. I still don’t know what I was hoping to find, but in the end it was almost a disappointment. There wasn’t even much of a space, just about enough to get a hand in. It was the sort of secret hiding place a child might find and then forget. I used to have something similar in my mom’s house underneath the old floorboards.
In the gap, there was a lock of brown hair bound in a ring, tied with a red ribbon that looked as if some insect had been eating it. I pulled it into the light and the air changed all around me. It’s hard to describe, but it felt a little bit like a plane coming down to an airport. Your ears block and suddenly you can’t hear as well. As I stood there staring at the ring of hair, I pinched my nostrils and blew, but it didn’t make any difference. I just knew that I’d found the real thing, that the spirit was bound to the hair.
“This is a relic,” I said to Weathers, behind me. My voice sounded peculiar, still muffled like we were on the approach to O’Hare and dropping fast. I pinched my nose again, blowing hard to clear my head. It still didn’t work and I began to feel a bit choked. Well, there was a way out of that.
I reached into my pants pocket and pull
ed out my lighter. As I’m writing my own story, I guess I could tell you it was a really cool Zippo, but the truth is it was the cheapest butane lighter you can buy. I remember my hand shook as I thumbed the wheel, and as it sparked and the flame lit, the air changed again, popped almost so that it left me gasping. There was no wind, but suddenly we weren’t dropping into Chicago through a thick fog, we were just standing in a basement, staring at a cigarette lighter.
I raised the flame to the lock of hair and without any warning, it went out. I’d felt the breath on my fingers, but I lit it again anyway, just to see it happen. The flame stood up and then it vanished as the Lady blew it out.
I stood there for a time, thinking a bit more deeply than usual. She had wanted me to find the ring of hair with its sad little ribbon, but she didn’t want to be set free. Like I said before, I don’t know exactly why she chose me, but I’ve always had the Garner charm; at least my mom used to tell me I had. She never meant it in a good way, though.
I carried that thing out of the house like it was a live grenade, stopping only to accept the cash payment old Weathers took from a tin in her kitchen. Hell, I’d earned the money. I didn’t even put the ring of hair in a pocket, just carried it out in front of me until my arm grew stiff. I didn’t feel any breath on the back of my neck then, not until I was out on Fisher Street and walking away.
I can’t explain exactly why I did the things I did that day. It would have been easy enough to throw the lock of hair down a drain, or better still into the river so it could be carried out to sea. Maybe if I’d been scared I would have done it, but you have to realize that this was my life’s work. Finally I had proof I wasn’t completely wasting my time. I never claimed to be a good man, but I never wanted to be a complete fake either. It felt like I’d found my Rosetta stone, the key that would unlock it all for me. It was true too, in a way.
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