by Cat Knight
“Was it ever proven to be just a terrible accident?”
“Now why would you be wondering about that question in particular?” Sarah and Rick looked at each other, Rick tried to look nonchalant, he raised his hands palm up to the sky.
“I heard it in town, that her death might have been because of her old man and it’s been weird at the house.”
“Hang on a minute. I know you – don’t I.” Dyson pointed his finger at Sarah, almost accusing.
“You’re that kid that used to live out there. The family moved - said the ghost of Maggie Jackson drove them out.” Sarah closed her eyes and nodded.
“You’ve got me. Yes, It’s me.”
“I never forget a face, but you’ve forgotten mine, haven’t you? You were about eight? Nine? You ran away the day your family moved, I had to bring you home. Don’t you remember the ride in the police car? You told me then your parents were mean to Maggie, and Maggie was going to be alone.”
Sarah eyes glazed for a moment as she stared into space, remembering the day. “You were kind to me. You said you’d look out for her.” Dyson gave a sorry smile.
“I did tell you that. But after you left, not a soul has been able to sleep there more than few nights. Not in all these years. Why’d you come back now?” Sarah hesitated. Just how mental did she want to sound to this old copper, who’d probably seen just about every form of crazy there was to see. He glued her eyes to his with an iron stare, until her own stare crumbled and she answered.
“It’s true. Maggie still lives there as a ghost.” Rick closed his eyes and sighed.
Sarah glared at him. “Look Rick, what did you want me to say? You said yourself it’s weird there. It’s a village, every-one knows stuff. And besides he already knows.” Looking at Dyson she said,
“You already know, don’t you?” Dyson nodded
“Only second hand of course.” Sarah got the feeling he was fudging things. “But I’ve heard. We all have.” Looking over to Rick, he said “It’s why my boy let you go the other night. He told me you were rattled to the core, but once you’d calmed down, he didn’t see a reason to make things worse. No one can live in that house since Dean…”
Dyson stopped abruptly… Sarah gave Rick a quizzical stare and turning back to Dyson asked the question with her eyes. Dyson was silent.
“Chief Inspector Dyson, we’ve been going through a lot. And I came back after all these years, won’t you tell us what you know. We aren’t reporters, you know it. We just want to help a little girl find rest.”
Dyson sagged in his seat. “Alright, I’ll tell ya.”
Dyson’s face puckered in sad recollection. “I was the first one on the scene It was 7:48 p.m. when I got the call to go around to Deans place. Dean was laying over Maggie’s body crying out and sobbing. I pulled him off of her and she was dead. Her neck was broken. I grabbed a hold of him and asked him what happened.” Dyson stopped talking and pressed his lips together in a hard grimace. “I saw it in his eyes. What he’d done. It was all there. The fear and the guilt. But that’s when Dean snapped out of it. He started spinning a story, so the first words out his mouth were, that she somehow tripped and tumbled.”
Dysons head was sunk low, despair and regret punctuated each word.
“Maggie had bruises on her arms and not from a tumble. To my mind they were finger marks. But there was something… else. Something happened that convinced me to this day.”
Chapter Thirteen
Dyson stopped talking and cracked his fingers. Rick went to say something but Sarah gave him a soft tap on the leg, and he fell silent. Eventually Dyson started talking again. “I felt things and I heard things in my head. I heard the argument, not like a movie, or a recording, but I heard it, somehow. I can’t explain it, call it intuition or some kind of insight but in a flash, I knew what happened. Dean was drunk and angry He swung her around and let her go.” His voice descended to a whisper. “She went down the stairs, I felt her neck break.”
Sarah wanted to go to him to comfort him but knew she could not. He was a stranger to her, but they had all three of them, felt Maggie in different ways. They sat in silence in a shared bond, until Dean regained himself enough to continue.
“And that’s when I checked her body and found the bruising. Well, I looked back at Dean, and he knew, that I knew. But he also knew it wouldn’t hold up because he would know what to say, how to deflect what he’d done. By the time anyone else arrived, he had it all worked out. Dean was home free.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sarah and Rick listened Dyson related the rests of the night’s events.
“Dean was interviewed by then Chief Inspector Diggins himself. I wrote my report, emphasised the bruising. Since I was first on the scene, they took my report too. I told ‘em – Deans story was just that - a story. That the bruises showed he had a hold of her and he was good and drunk and lost his temper. Well the old Chief, he looked at me like I crawled out of under some rock. He told me I had it wrong. Dean had grabbed a hold of the child and swung her around in greeting. But when he swung her, he lost his balance and they had both fallen down the stairs. The paramedics said Dean was lucky he hadn’t wound up dead too, but the alcohol had limbered him up and he some-how landed better than he would’ve. His view point was echoed in the physical examination.”
“Didn’t he have any bruises to show?”
“Yeah, he had a few, it corroborated his story, they said, but I also heard on the quiet that the bruising didn’t match up with a tumble down the stairs.”
“Oh dear Lord above. They covered it up!” Sarah’s heart was racing. Maybe this is why Maggie was so angry and couldn’t move on.
“Ye-ep. That’s what I always thought. The coroner’s report ultimately decided it was an accident. The chief inspector reported it as a tragedy. The word about the force was that Dean would have been better off not surviving, given all he had to go through with his wife and now his only child.”
Dean’s chest rose and fell in a deep sigh. He paused momentarily and rubbed at his eyes.
“I kicked up a stink, I said I’d go higher, that they needed to interrogate him thoroughly like anyone else and not just cut him loose. In the end, they sent me for psychiatric evaluation and said I was traumatised by finding the little girl like that. And I got paid sick leave for a few weeks. In that time, the inspector visited me and told me, that they knew it was hard to see a dead child, but everyone knew Dean couldn’t have done it. He said they bore no ill will, but if I was a team player, I’d come back quietly and respect the memories of the dead.”
Dyson fell silent until Sarah asked him “So that’s what you did?”
He told me Dean had left – couldn’t face what had happened and quit the force, which they all thought was for the best. Well I tried to keep tabs on him, but he slipped through my fingers. I don’t know what I could have done differently, but I spent years feeling that I should’ve done more. I let Maggie down.”
Sarah nodded, and spoke gently. “I understand how you feel Inspector Dyson. I felt I let her down too, when I left our house all those years ago. But I don’t know what you could have done. You tried. It’s more than anyone else wanted to do for her, so it seems.”
“Well there was talk, you can never completely quell human curiosity, but I honestly think, no one on the force wanted to believe he could have done it. And after he left, well, people just thought it was a good thing that he had.”
“Where’s Dean today? Do you know if he’s living?” Rick’s eyes were black and his voice had an edge to it.
“I don’t know. He could be anywhere. He’d be in his late seventies now.
“But what about the house, who did we buy it from? Was it him?”
“No, you bought it from some outta towners who left long ago. It’s been on the market ever since.” Sarah had become thoughtful and looked from one to the other.
“If we can find him we can get the truth out of him. Once we can get him to admit it
maybe Maggie can leave and go to wherever it is that human spirits should go when they pass. We have to find him; we can’t just leave her here. And DEAN, Dean will have to confront what he’s done. Perhaps Maggie’s grief will end.” Dyson looked doubtful.
“Men like Dean get away with these crimes every day.”
Chapter Fourteen
The drive back to their home left them feeling exhausted. Conversation was stilted and tinged with sadness. Pulling into the driveway, Sarah turned the ignition off and the car’s engine died. Rick bent to his feet and handed her a box of takeaway fish and chips. They unwrapped their food and the two of them ate silently while surveying the damaged windows that left the house open to the elements. Sarah yawned, sleep deprivation was making her feel loopy, and her words tumbled out, with no thought to their effect.
“I don’t know what to do now. The way she was last time we were in the house, I thought we might not get out alive…but then again you probably made her angry when you mentioned the word exorcist.”
Beyond tired, and at a loss for what to do, Ricks words were caustic. “Do you really think she knew what that meant. I mean she was six years old and unless ghosts get lessons in exorcism awareness…”
“Well maybe she didn’t understand THAT word,” Sarah barked at him, “But I’m fairly sure she knew what the words, ‘get rid of her’ meant.”
“Yeah. Well, she flung things at you when you told her to play nice.”
Stinging silence filled the car. Rick heaved a sigh and began contemplating the damage to the house. Taking steps to control a situation always calmed him. “The one thing I need to do is get those windows fixed.”
“Let’s just cover the windows with plastic for now.” Sarah’s voice was on edge with irritation. “You never know if we can get Maggie under control, we might even get some help fixing the things she broke… Anyway, it looks like you believe in ghosts now.”
Rick stared out the window before finally answering. Resentment imbuing every word. “If we have any hope of living there, we have to make peace with it all somehow.” Moving closer ignoring the shift stick, Sarah tried to snuggle in.
Rick moved over and put his arm loosely around her still staring out of the window. A weight was lifting off her mind. Rick was still mad but was willing to help even if she had tricked him.
A tingle started in the back of her nose and she flexed it a few times and swallowed the lump in her throat. The weight she’d been carrying for all these years felt like it was coming to a precipice. Now that Rick was on board Sarah and Rick together could help Maggie and the terrible burden would be gone. But he had no choice, did he? Hadn’t she just dumped him in it?
“Rick?” Rick turned his head to her, she reached up and ran her fingers over his face, and back up to his hairline, caressing him. “I’m sorry I lied. I think I was just so focussed on fixing it I pushed every rational thought aside.” Rick nodded slightly.
“It’s OK, I can’t think about it now Sarah. Let’s just try to fix it, if we can.” More silence. Sarah’s soft sniffles took up the space. She grabbed at a serviette on the dash and wiped her nose. Rick relented a bit. “Do you honestly still think that she’s harmless. I wonder if she knows we are just trying to help?”
“I don’t know… it doesn’t matter, we still have to try. If you take a child to the doctor for a needle they think you’re hurting them, they don’t like the doctor... and they blame the parent.”
“But this isn’t a child. I know she was once, but now… what-ever it is, it’s angry and past understanding.”
“I don’t know Rick.” Her voice was faded into sleepy talk, “But I’m sorry I got us into it. I really thought I could help. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought.” Exhaustion defeated her and she turned aside from Rick and curled up in the seat with her head against the door.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Rick continued to stare out the window. Sarah’s breathing became slow and even, he turned to the back seat, found the blanket and covered her. Swallowing hard, he reached deep inside himself. They were in trouble. And yes, it was Sarah’s fault. But wasn’t her caring sweet nature one of the things he loved? Didn’t she melt his heart with her child like innocence that good would triumph evil? A protectiveness surged inside him, and he opened the car door.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Not bothering with the entrance path, Rick approached from the side of the house toward the broken windows. Jagged edges reached up only a few inches from the window sill.
The thought that floor to ceiling windows would be astronomically expensive to replace ran across his mind and he pushed it aside. He wasn’t here for that. Right now, there were other things that needed to be accomplished.
Broken glass crunched under his feet as he moved through the living room. The little ornaments and family photos Sarah had displayed on the bureau lay scattered on the floor. The artworks she had attached to the walls, were hanging sideways or littering his path along with all the other debris. That storm, or Maggie, or whatever, had wreaked havoc in the house. Nausea filled his stomach, and bile flowed to his throat. Turning to the window the urge to sprint back and jump through to safety almost overcame him. He mentally knocked the thought away.
Chapter Fifteen
Every muscle was tense as he walked the lower floor, expecting Maggie at every turn. An eerie stillness hung heavily within the rooms, yet the temperature dropped with alarming speed until Rick was sporting goose-bumps under his jacket. Trepidation curled over his skin, Maggie was watching him. Tiny movements caught his eye and he spun around looking for the source. “Maggie? Maggie?” Rick almost didn’t recognise his own voice with its cracking dry thinness. Fear’s my best mate lately, he thought wryly, trying to garner some saliva to wet his tongue.
A small object clattered to the floor, it sounded as though it came from upstairs. His throat closed and he stifled a small cry. Does she want me to find her? Is this a game? “I’m here to help.” Rick stood still, waiting, all was quiet.
Regaining his courage, he spoke again, “Sarah wants to help. She’s asleep right now and can’t come inside but we both want to be your friend.” A childish giggle sounded from somewhere around him.
Rick stopped breathing but suddenly his breath rushed out in rapid succession curling misty white with the cold. Cupping his hands around his nose, to stem the hyperventilation, he breathed in deeply and ignored the dizziness in his head.
Footsteps sounded on the floor boards in-front of him. Standing still he waited unsure what to do. Another single step followed. Rick realised his first instinct was right, it was a game like the night when he inched along the upper stairway to meet her in the middle. Creaking came from the stairs just in front of him. She wanted him to follow. Every nerve was on edge firing off warnings. He could turn and run, but would she let him leave now? The time for that was gone.
Placing one foot on the bottom step and then the next, he waited. Giggling sounded just ahead. Rick’s head swam. He grabbed the railing for support. The steps above him creaked again. Forcing himself upward Rick continued, holding the railing for comfort and support. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the nagging feeling that she wanted him in the attic and that was the last place Rick wanted to go.
Once at the top of the stairwell, more giggling noises hovered around him, flitting shadows appeared and dissolved into the wall. Rick inched along until he stood before the attic room and swallowed hard. The attic door lay in a heap on the ground, smashed to pieces from where Sarah and Rick had ploughed through it.
A pink light filled the room in the rapidly fading sunset. Rick knew the light would soon be gone and he would be in darkness. Fighting with himself against fear and gripping for his mobile, he switched it to camera. Most importantly though, the phone would give him a beam if he needed it.
Tentatively stepping into the attic, he looked at the dollhouse and made a decision.
“Can I play with you Maggie?” Kneeling down, he picked up
the dollhouse and restored it upright. Crawling around he searched for the pieces that belonged to it until he felt he had found enough. Then positioning himself by the old aluminium structure he picked up a teapot. His fingers felt like custard as he poured imaginary tea into the tiny cup and put it to his lips. Slurping loudly as he had seen his sister do with his niece, he said in as cheery a voice as he could manage.
“Do you like sugar and milk in your tea? This cup’s for you Maggie. I’ll put it right here.”
Rick reached forward and placed the cup and saucer out on the floor. It was hard to gauge the time, seconds passed in excruciating moments. The pink of the sun faded to grey. A shadowy figure caught his peripheral vision. Ricks eyes bulged out from his face and slowly he turned his head.
Next to him, was a pale translucent figure wide eyed. Rick and Maggie stared at each other for a long time. His body began to shake and tremble, but Rick didn’t move.
“Let me help you Maggie.” The whispers that came from his mouth, were uttered in a mix of astonishment and disbelief.
The apparition looked through him. The weight of the mobile phone in his pocket registered in his mind. Fumbling for it, he placed it in his lap and turned it towards her. He didn’t take his eyes off Maggie yet searched for the phone with his fingers. Relief flicked within him as he found the indentation on the phone snapped again and again into the air space.
Rick’s mind began to swarm, his thoughts became dark and his head hurt. Dropping the phone and his hands hugged his head trying to protect it from the searing burn crashing through his skull and neck. Moaning with the pain found he was being forced to the ground.
Laying in a foetal position, flashes of an old man bombarded his vision, giving way to visions of a small white house with a patch of green outside. The dwelling was conjoined to other similar houses and all their roofs were painted red and peeling with age. A brick wall lined with mailboxes came into his view. Waterford Downs flashed to his mind, miles of highway sped past him. The pain began to subside and reeling from shock, Rick sat up. Maggie was gone.