When I could finally see through the haze, I was startled to see him again, his pallid chiseled jaw, his hawk-like stare. He still wore the priest’s collar and my own sweet Meredith Mae was serving him tea. I knew her instantly.
* * * *
The devil looked at me over his cup; his eyes rolled back in his head and his smile revealed two small fangs on either side of his mouth. With his tongue he licked blood from his lips. Meredith Mae did not seem to detect the foul odor he carried.
I felt dizzy and noticed, to my dismay, that Meredith Mae could not see me.
The bastard held his hand out to me.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” He grinned.
Meredith Mae laughed.
“No,” she said.
“Vampires, bloodsuckers?”
“Good Lord, no,” she answered.
“Jesus?”
“Yes, of course.” She bowed her head.
“Good girl,” the bastard said. “Jesus, the Holy Ghost, Mary the Virgin? Interesting dribble.” He smiled. “I prefer other works of fiction.”
“Father Jacques, you have a strange sense of humor.”
“Just testing your faith, child. It is as sweet as a kiss from the Holy Ghost himself.”
I sat in a chair and glared at him. Meredith Mae continued to drink her tea.
“I see you are still sad, my child.”
“Yes, Father, I am terribly sad.”
“Have faith and pray.”
“Yes, Father.” She managed a faint smile. “What will you be preaching to us on Sunday?”
“Fidelity,” he whispered.
I realized that I was ghostly, and I could obviously not be seen. I found it difficult to remember what had happened to me. For a moment, I could not decipher one dimension from the next; too many memories flooded my consciousness.
Father Jacques turned to me and pointed his brows. “God did not mean to confuse you. You’re lost, bitch.”
“Begone, the devil’s toad!” I said but the words had no voice with which to be heard.
Obviously the bastard could see me but I was nothing but space to Meredith Mae.
“Did you say something, Father Jacques?” she asked.
“Ghosts should be seen and not heard, like women.” He laughed and slashed out at the air that my ghostly vision occupied.
I moved back. I realized that Ann Peckham must have been murdered. I had some movement that I could control, but I would not be able to speak unless I took a body. But whose body, pray tell, whose?
Suddenly the door burst open, and in walked Rachel with a man I presumed to be her new husband, Troy Spencer. With them they had a young girl of about two that I assumed was their first daughter. The child squealed loudly when she entered the room.
Father Jacques grimaced and stood quickly, as if the presence of the new arrivals disturbed him, particularly the child’s. I noticed the grimace remained on his face.
“Children should be seen and not heard, as well,” he said. “I have overstayed my welcome,” he whispered to Meredith Mae and bowed slightly from the waist.
“Your presence is always welcomed,” she said as she walked with him to the door.
“You know my daughter, Rachel, and her husband, Troy?”
“Yes, yes,” he said and extended his hand to Troy.
“And their daughter, Elizabeth Sue?”
“Sweet,” he muttered, and quickly left the room, giving a hateful sneer in my direction before closing the door behind him.
“Mother, how are you holding up?” Rachel asked Meredith Mae.
The child suddenly broke away from her father and began to jump up and down and peer into the corners of the room.
“I know you’re here, oh, I do. I do,” she whispered, very quietly, so her parents could not hear her words.
“Whom on earth are you jabbering with, dear?” Rachel laughed.
“The child is pretending to speak, how cute. It almost sounds as if she has a vocabulary,” Meredith Mae said.
“Annie, where are you?” the child whispered from behind her little hand.
“I could almost swear she said, ‘where are you?’” Rachel laughed and looked around.
“Mommy. Mommy,” the child responded.
“Good God!” I whispered from my vacuum. I was both appalled and shocked. So much so, that I did not even wonder what had made my dear Meredith Mae so upset, for I knew that she was distressed over something. I could feel it and see the sadness in her expression.
“You are here! You have done it, but you need a body. I cannot see you but I feel your presence,” the child whispered into a corner I just happened to be occupying.
“How could you?” I cried from my opacity.
“Elizabeth Sue, come sit on Mommy’s lap,” Rachel called.
I stared through my darkness in disbelief. Why, she had taken a child’s flesh. My sweet Elizabeth had robbed a child of life!
“Is Grandfather still angry?” Rachel asked as she sat near Meredith Mae and took her hand.
“Yes, he is furious with me,” Meredith Mae answered.
I moved closer to Meredith Mae so that I might understand what problem existed, but the child ran through the space I tried to capture.
“I know what you must be thinking, but oh, Annie, I had no choice,” the child whispered into the air. “It is not what you think.”
“Elizabeth Sue, Daddy’s sweet. Do sit down, will you?” Troy smiled.
“Dada,” the child answered and sat quickly.
I was so shocked and so dismayed.
Oh, Elizabeth, Elizabeth! How could you? You have robbed the body of a child? Oh good Lord above us. Oh dear, oh dear, was the thought I formed.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I lingered and listened to their chatter. I was so upset that I found it difficult to concentrate on what I was hearing. I floated through the rooms in a despondent state, waiting impatiently to be alone with the child.
Finally, they bid a very long and fond good night to Meredith Mae. I followed behind when they left. They did not live far and were able to walk. They took the girl to bed as soon as they arrived home, and spent some time kissing her good night. After what seemed like forever, they wished her a sound night’s sleep and left the room.
I crept into the darkness and tried to speak to Elizabeth, but she could not hear my words. I needed a body. My memory was quite clear once again, and I recalled my last moment in this century. I had run up the stairs trying to escape Urbain. I looked back at the little girl in the bed and did all I could to wake her, but I could not touch anything material and I had no breath to blow on her cheek. I decided to wait. I knew she would eventually awaken, and I hoped she would feel my presence once again. To my great relief, the child opened her eyes just a few hours before dawn.
* * * *
“Annie, Annie, are you here?” she whispered.
How could I answer her? I screamed, but it did no good.
“I sense you, Annie. If you are here, give me a sign of some sort. Make some movement, any kind of movement.”
I tried to figure out what to do. Suddenly, I remembered how angry I had been at Malcolm and how the energy from that emotion had caused a faint red glare. I worked myself up into a rage and spun around the room. After a while, I heard the child giggle.
“Oh, Annie I see you. I see you,” she cried and put her fingers to her lips. “I must speak low. I do not want to wake Rachel. She sits for hours and tells me stories whenever I do,” she said.
I watched as she sat up and fluffed her pillow.
“I know what you are thinking, and it could not be further from the truth. I did not kill the child,” she insisted. “I did not kill little Elizabeth Sue.”
I let out what would have been a sigh, had I breath, and listened.
“The poor baby was choking in her crib when I came to her. She was dying. It was her time to go. She would not have lived had I not of given her the strength of my soul. Miraculously,
I was able to keep her flesh alive once I took it over. I needed a body, and at that very moment there was no one else’s to take. I did not think it would work, for I was quite sure her little heart had stopped, but then I felt it, and I knew that God had granted me a place in time, and that this little soul of Elizabeth Sue’s was now in God’s hands and that I was forgiven, that fate had intervened. You cannot fault me for allowing fate to guide me. Oh, I will tell you the whole wretched story, Annie, but please do not be angry with me.”
She pulled herself up higher on her pillows and rubbed her nose. You could say that I sat on the edge of the bed, though it was not really sitting, it was more like lingering.
“Matthew had an affair with some woman claiming to be a friend of Ursula Boussidan, Louis’s so-called sister. I imagine it had been going on for years,” she began and let out a long, small breath at the end of the sentence.
I was shocked to hear that she had discovered this treachery. I remembered how I had seen my son in Jeanne Elemont’s arms, and his confessions of infidelity.
“Perhaps I really was too old for him, I do not know. But the intimacy was quite wonderful between us. It was richer and more satisfying than it had ever been in Salem when I was a young girl. But Jeanne Elemont changed that. She was very beautiful and appeared to be several years younger than Matthew. She was constantly invited to the house because Louis insisted on having her. She unabashedly flirted with Matthew in front of all of us, including me. I began to suspect that they had been intimate.”
She sighed again and I watched as her little body slid down from the pillows.
I was saddened by this news and angry with my son. I wanted to tell her that men often succumb to such deceit, and to not be too terribly hurt by it, but my words fell into nothing.
“I ignored their affair, at first, and I took myself out,” she continued. “I did whatever I could to take my mind off it. I went to concerts and plays. I joined clubs. I did everything possible to avoid facing this betrayal. And then, one afternoon, quite by chance, I ventured over the bridge to New York City and decided I would indulge myself in a history lesson. I would see how different Greenwich Village looked in the dimension of 1859, compared to what I knew of it in the late twentieth century. To my amazement, I saw Louis and Jeanne Elemont shopping together on Waverly Place. They were holding hands like new, young lovers. In a state of shock, I followed them to an apartment not far from where you had once lived as Ann Peckham in 1980. Louis stayed there for hours. When he returned to Brooklyn, later that evening, he told Meredith Mae that he had been bored with a client and forced into a long tedious dinner. He out and out lied to her, Annie.”
I watched as the child stopped speaking. She listened intently for a moment to hear if her quiet talk had awoken Rachel and Troy. After a moment or so, when she was assured that no one had heard her, she continued.
“After that afternoon, I decided to keep a close watch on Louis Boussidan. To my horror, I discovered that he met Jeanne Elemont every Wednesday afternoon, and Jeanne Elemont met my own dear Matthew on Tuesdays, when I was away with my book club. I thought this was the worst offense I had ever been privy to. I thought that things could not possibly get any darker than this when, to my horror, I discovered that this Louis Boussidan had ventured into Jeanne Elemont’s apartment one afternoon, and had emerged only a few hours later, as a woman! Do you believe that, Annie? He emerged as a woman? I knew it was the same person immediately, for Louis had a bad bruise on his cheek from a recent fall, and this woman had the very same bruise on the very same cheek. It was large enough to be seen from my hiding place across the street. How bizarre and decadent it was, and how on earth would I ever tell Matthew?”
I was overjoyed that Elizabeth now knew the truth about Louis’s charade and wanted so badly to discuss this horrid state of affairs, but my voice came out like huffs of wind, and Elizabeth ignored it as nothing more but the evening breeze. She continued with her tale.
“Well, I confronted Matthew immediately. First, I told him of Louis’s infidelity with Jeanne Elemont and watched as his face turned several shades of red. After he was sufficiently shocked, I told him that Louis was an even greater imposter than he could imagine. He listened to me with his mouth agape and almost fell over from the news of it. He was absolutely horrified, and immediately confronted Louis, who at first denied it and laughed rather loudly at him. But then, when Matthew insisted that he disrobe, he unabashedly opened his shirt and revealed two small but perfectly rounded breasts under all this wrapping tape that he had used to conceal them. As Matthew gapped in horror, Ursula spit at him. Matthew gasped and ordered Ursula from our home, right then and there. I thought it best not to bring up his own affair with Jeanne Elemont, for I knew he would never see the woman again, now that he knew of her unnatural indiscretion. To my great relief, this was correct, and Matthew returned to my bed with renewed fervor.”
Elizabeth sat up and fluffed the pillows. I was relieved for my Meredith Mae, but I wondered what transpired when Ursula was driven away. I wanted so badly to ask. I watched impatiently while Elizabeth took her time with the pillows. Finally, she continued.
“You can imagine what Matthew thought of his daughter at this point. Poor Meredith Mae remained silent when we confronted her, and we believed for a while that she had been duped by this charade. We foolishly considered Meredith Mae so naive that she would not know the sex of the person who made love to her. How stupid of us, really. However, she finally admitted that she had known the truth all along. Matthew was appalled. He insisted that she marry a young bachelor he knew from his men’s club, young Callen Hall. Meredith Mae was beside herself, and absolutely refused to do so. Matthew put his foot down and threatened never to speak to her again if she did not. He offered Callen a large dowry. Callen, of course, was thrilled, for he had always been very gallant around Meredith Mae. Matthew took further control of the situation and went to Silas. He told him of Louis’s infidelity. Silas, still believing that Louis had something to do with his father’s death and his own incarceration, was happy to write up a new will, one that completely eliminated Louis Boussidan as a beneficiary. Meredith Mae unhappily acquiesced and agreed to sign the new will.”
The child suddenly stopped talking and turned to the windows.
“Are you still here, Annie?” she asked. “I do feel as though I am speaking to myself.”
I began to spin around the room again, and I could see from my opacity that Elizabeth’s eyes followed me, much as they used to when she was a child in Salem.
“Ha!” she said. “I see you.”
I stopped my spinning and rested before her. She leaned in toward me now and spoke in a whisper.
“Matthew did not tell Silas of Louis’s real identity as a woman. He knew it would bring too much shame to Meredith Mae and the rest of the family. The truth provided some safety for Ursula, who disappeared from the house and took up residence with Jeanne Elemont in Manhattan. I knew this because I went there and spied on them.”
Again, she stopped speaking and looked around the room. I wanted to ask her about Meredith Mae, and hoped she would resume her tale. As if she had read my thoughts, she continued.
“Meredith Mae begged Matthew to allow her to see Ursula, but he absolutely refused. Meredith Mae finally agreed to honor her father’s wishes and marry Callen. She really had no other choice. To my knowledge, she and Ursula were not in contact after Matthew threw Ursula out.”
It was then we heard a creak on the floorboards and the child held her breath. A cat the size of a raccoon jumped in her bed and nestled beside her.
“This is Sadie,” she told me.
Oh, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, please do go on, I tried to call out, but my words broke up and fell apart.
“Isn’t she pretty?” She smiled.
I began to spin again and the child followed me around the room with her eyes while the cat purred loudly in her arms.
“Matthew took Meredith Mae to Long Island to visi
t Maebelle,” she finally continued.
I sighed some relief, though I could not be heard.
“Her wedding to Callen was planned when they returned. I was alone in the house making preparations for the wedding. I had no reason to fear Ursula Boussidan, for I believed that I had seen the last of her. That could not have been further from the truth. While I slept in my bed, the vicious woman stole into my room with her accomplice, Jeanne Elemont, and put a pillow over my head. I must have struggled a great deal, because they could not suffocate me. So one of them broke my neck instead, just snapped it in two.”
I let out a long, low cry that broke up and fell into space. If Ursula had been before me, my own hands would have choked her to death. She had murdered my Elizabeth, who was now trapped inside the body of a child, doomed as I was to an eternity of pursuit, to a murderous yearning to clothe the soul in flesh and blood. I wanted so much to speak to Elizabeth, to comfort her as best I could, but my words were contained in the prison of my fate.
“Oh no, Rachel is coming,” the child suddenly said.
Rachel entered the room quickly, just at that moment and Elizabeth Sue slid under the sheets and pretended to snore.
“Whom are you speaking with?” Rachel laughed.
“Da da,” the child whispered back.
“Da da?”
“Mama.”
“I think I’ll tell you a ghost story. That will put you back to sleep, just for another hour or so, darling. It’s too early to be up and about. How about the Annabel Horton ghost story?”
The child giggled.
I proceeded to listen to Rachel tell the baby some wild tale about a ghost named Annabel Horton. I grimaced to myself as I listened. I suppose it does give some amount of peace to distort truth, does it not?
* * * *
I had to find a body quickly. I had to keep any harm from happening to Meredith Mae and Matthew. I knew that Ursula and Jeanne had killed Elizabeth to get her out of the way. Their original plan must have been to bring Jeanne into the family by marrying her off to Matthew after the five-year wait was over, making both Ursula and Jeanne heirs to the estate. They most likely wanted to insure themselves a claim to the estate should Ursula’s charade ever be found out. But their plans were badly fouled by Elizabeth when she returned to Matthew’s dimension. The chances of their getting their hands on the estate now was unlikely, unless Jeanne found a way back into Matthew’s bed and Meredith Mae’s will was altered again to include Ursula, as Louis, her estranged husband. Then of course, Meredith Mae would have to be mysteriously done away with. I was quite sure they had the audacity to succeed in reclaiming my wealth, and I surmised that I had to act fast. I knew they were planning on murdering the members of my family one by one if I did not.
Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem Page 30