Muses

by Elizabeth Andre

  Where did you find these?” It was a female voice, authoritative yet soothing at the same time.

  “Maddie? Is it you?” Maya asked. She stood near the items.

  “She’s here?” Lily sounded excited.

  “Something’s here,” Jason said. He moved closer to Maya. His EDI meter got louder.

  Julie leaned over to Lily, “Just wait. It’s gonna be amazing.”

  “But who’s she talking to?”

  “Stay back. Okay?” Julie said, placing a hand on Lily’s shoulder. “She’s talking to one of the ghosts. We can’t hear it yet, but she can.”

  “We found them at the library. You can come closer. I can help you. It is, Maddie, yes?”

  Now the voice sounded impatient. “Yes, I’m Madeleine. Maddie to my family and friends. What do you mean you found my things at the library?”

  Maya felt it suddenly, a rush of warmth that entered her like a hot chocolate she had drunk too fast or the first hot, sunny day after a long winter. It started in the middle of her torso and flowed rapidly outward to the tips of her fingers and the edges of her smallest toes. She felt a prickling sensation in her belly. She smelled the burnt flower scent that had become the signature of the sisters.

  “It’s you,” Maya said.

  Maddie emerged from the dark. She was older than the shadow of herself who had brushed her hair on the bed, older than the photos they had seen of her. Her hair now had some grey at her temples. Wrinkles appeared around her eyes as she spoke.

  “Why were my things in the library?” she asked.

  “I can hear her! Do you hear her?” Lily said in a stage whisper to the team.

  “Yes, we can hear her. It’s like this,” Julie said. “When a ghost connects with Maya, it can use her as a conduit to this side of the veil.”

  “They possess her?” Lily said, this time in a horrified whisper. She glanced at Maya who was almost in a trance-like state.

  Eddie, who sat in a chair nearby with his eyes closed, said, “No. Not exactly. It’s more like Maya acts as an anchor. It’s a temporary thing.”

  Lily stepped closer to Maya. “Okay. It’s a little creepy, though. Oh, and now I can see her. She’s here.”

  “How did my things come to be in a library?” Maddie asked.

  “Your things were put into a time capsule and then several years later it was dug up. The items that were in the time capsule were put on display in your town’s public library.” Julie said.

  Maddie said nothing at first. Her hand reached out to her old things. She ran a finger along the brush’s silver handle. “I loved this brush. Nelly always said that it was impossible to love things because things can’t love you back, but I loved it. It felt perfect in my hand, and it kept my hair so soft.”

  “Who’s Nelly?” Jason asked. He turned the sound down in his EDI meter, but it was still lit up like a Christmas tree.

  “Nelly. My oldest sister. Eleanor. She had definite ideas about the way things should be. Who are all of you? I remember you, Maya. I met you the last time.” Maddie glanced around until her gaze fell on Lily. “What’s your name? I like your hair.”

  Lily looked uncertain, but answered. “My name is Lily. I…”

  “Do you live here now?” Maddie asked.

  “Temporarily. I’m glad to meet you,” Lily said.

  Maddie didn’t answer. She hung there in silence.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Getting to know Maddie

  “This is so weird,” Lily whispered to Julie. That was an understatement. Lily had never felt so uncomfortable yet so excited in all her life. As the others introduced themselves to the ghost, she watched Maya. She seemed like a different person. She stood stiffly with her arms akimbo. Her eyes were open but looked at nothing. Lily hoped they would get the answers they wanted. She also hoped that Maya would be all right when this was over.

  “Do you have a favorite author?” Maddie said to Lily. Her voice was distorted as if she was in an amusement park echo chamber. She spoke once. Then her words were repeated in the distance.

  “I’m sorry. What?” Lily had been surprised by Madeleine’s question. It was so ordinary.

  “A favorite author. Or favorite poet. I’m partial to Yeats, myself, and Christina Rossetti wrote some lovely verse. I’ve also enjoyed the writings of Booth Tarkington. Penrod makes me laugh.” There was delight and yet a deep sadness in Madeleine’s voice.

  Lily, who loved reading, was momentarily at a loss. Many of the writers she’d been reading lately were contemporary, from the mid-20th through the early 21st centuries. She wasn’t sure if she should offer up modern authors or stick with names Madeleine would likely be more familiar with. She looked around at the others. Julie smiled at her encouragingly. Penny gave her a thumbs up.

  “I enjoy Yeats, too, and, um, Kipling. I’ve read some Kipling.” Lily paused and, then, throwing caution to the wind, added, “I also love Toni Morrison and Zadie Smith.”

  Madeleine fixated on one name. Red flecks appeared in her eyes. “Kipling! That warmongering colonialist! Kipling is unhealthy. You must swear off Kipling. Kipling.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Lily noticed Penny shrugging at Julie, who cleared her throat to get the ghost’s attention.

  “Maddie? It’s me. Julie. Can I ask you a few questions?”

  Madeleine glanced around and was finally able to focus on Julie. She nodded.

  “Thank you. How did you and your sisters become Richard Vinette’s muses?”

  Madeleine took her time responding. Her eyes returned to normal. When she did reply, she said, “Muses? Vinette? The name is unfamiliar to me.”

  Lily felt a prickle of panic. “Richard Vinette lived here before me,” she said. “He was a writer. He said that you and your sisters helped him become a better writer so he could sell more books.”

  “Oh, that man.” Madeleine said flatly before changing the subject. She smoothed down a stray hair. “Now, I started a writers group. Well, it was more of a book club, but we did share bits of our writing. We had poetry readings. Allegra had the most beautiful voice. I could sit and listen to her read for days.”

  “Please, Maddie. Think. Richard Vinette asked for your help, for help from you and your sisters,” Julie said. “And, according to him and his wife, you gave it to him.”

  Madeleine seemed to become disgruntled. She became agitated. “Was he a good writer? This Vinette person?”

  Steve, Julie, Penny, Jason, and Lily exchanged looks. Jason shrugged. Lily was about to answer, but was cut off by Maya.

  “He wasn’t the greatest writer, no, but he wrote a few books that people really liked,” she said. Her pose hadn’t changed. She still stared off looking at nothing, but she spoke like she was having coffee with friends.

  Lily made a mental note to ask Maya after all this was over how she managed to remain herself while she had a ghost using her to communicate with the living.

  Again, silence from Madeleine. “Dime novels? Is that what he wrote?”

  “Yeah, you could say that,” Steve said.

  Jason gave a derisive snort. “But they cost more than a dime apiece now.”

  “Why is that?” Madeleine asked.

  Now they were straying from the purpose of this exercise. Given the chance, Steve may have tried to explain inflation and the U.S. going off the gold standard for good in 1971 with an able assist from Penny. Lily needed to know more about the connection of Madeleine and her sisters to her uncle. She was relieved when Julie tried to get them back on track.

  Julie said, “Where we are now in time, for us, is the present. For you, it’s the future, and in the future things cost much more than they did in your time.”

  Madeleine seemed to think about this for a few moments. She turned to Lily. “This is my bedroom. I was a little girl and young woman here. Did you know that?”

  Madeleine either hadn’t understood what Julie had told her, hadn’t heard her, or specific talk of the future didn’t regi
ster with her.

  Lily nodded. “I did. It’s a beautiful room.”

  “I’d brush my hair every night while I sat on my bed. One hundred strokes every night. When I was a little girl, Mama would brush my hair, and I would count.”

  Lily liked the image Madeleine conjured of her mother brushing her hair while young Maddie counted out the strokes. It evoked a sense of closeness and love, but she doubted this was what they needed to end the ghosts’ reign over the house. She looked more closely at Maya and became alarmed. Maya looked awfully tired.

  “Hey, you guys! Maybe we should wrap this up,” Lily said.

  “Not when I’m getting such great footage.” Penny was roaming around the room with her camera trained on Lily and Maya.

  “Okay, but Maya seems really, really tired.” Lily moved tentatively toward Maya who looked like she was trying to keep her eyes open. The color was draining from her face.

  Eddie admonished her. “Stay back. She’s all right.”

  Lily deferred to Eddie. She figured they were the experts. They’d done this before. She got the sense that Maya trusted Eddie implicitly.

  Still, Maya looked so tired. Her breathing got louder. Her shoulders slumped.

  “After Mama died, Rosie would brush my hair sometimes, Nelly less often. Most nights, I brushed my own hair, but then Allegra came to stay with us.” Madeleine sounded delighted at the memories.

  “Who’s Allegra?” asked Steve.

  And Madeleine was gone.

  He looked up at Maya, but his expression of indicated that he clearly didn’t like what he saw. Maya lurched forward and started to fall. She stumbled against Eddie who stood up and grabbed her arm to help steady her.

  “Maya? What is it?” he asked.

  Maya shook her head. “I— I don’t know what happened. She was there, here, one moment and gone the next. It was like she was ripped away, and I’ve never felt so tired being a ghost’s anchor. Why is this so hard?”

  Eddie helped her sit down on the bed.

  Jason said, “Nothing.” He shook and tapped on his EDI meter. “I’m not getting any readings. They’re all gone.”

  After Eddie sat down next to Maya, she collapsed in his arms. She struggled to catch her breath. She nearly fell backwards a couple of times. Eddie wouldn’t let her go. Steve brought her a glass of water that she gulped down.

  “We have to find Allegra,” said Maya as she handed back the empty glass and signaled for it to be refilled.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Waiting

  Maya sat on the bed drinking her second glass of water. Eddie was stroking her back. She’d never felt so tired after helping anchor a ghost to the world and helping them tell their story.

  “It’s just not right,” she said to Eddie. She wondered if he knew something he wasn’t telling, just like the magical powers he had that no one would talk about.

  “I know,” he said.

  Jason was behind him getting ready to leave. “I think our job here may be done. Whatever you did got rid of them.” He stared at his dark and quiet EDI meter in amazement.

  “They’re still here,” said Maya. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  Jason frowned, but stayed along with the rest of the Paranormal Grievance Committee. Eddie and Maya attempted another summoning, this time with a pentacle chalked onto the foyer’s hardwood floor, to no avail. In the darkness, Steve, Penny, Jason, and Julie roamed all over the house trying to find any evidence that the ghosts would make another appearance.

  “I told you I think they’re gone,” said Jason, sounding more certain this time.

  “And I told you they’re not,” said Maya.

  “What do we do next?” Lily asked when they had all gathered in the living room. She sat next to Maya on the sofa.

  Maya moved her head this way and that, stretching her neck and releasing an occasional crack. “We stay. We talked to Maddie. We know what we need to do, but, man, this crick in my neck is a monster,” she said.

  Lily’s hands approached Maya’s neck. “I’ve got a cousin who’s a massage therapist. She taught me a few things about giving neck massages. Can I?”

  The sympathetic look on Lily’s face made it hard for Maya to divine any intent other than wanting to help her. Also, it was too late, and she was in too much pain to get hung up on professionalism. She nodded her consent. Lily dug into the soft tissue in Maya’s neck, upper back, and shoulders. Lily’s fingers were warm, her touch comforting. Maya tried to forget all those times a massage turned into more. Besides she was on a job. Also Eddie, Steve, Jason, Penny, and Julie we’re nearby trying to figure out their next move while trying not to stare.

  “Do you think they’ll come back?” said Lily as her thumb released a knot in Maya’s shoulder.

  Jason was about to say no when Steve cut him off.

  “Almost certainly,” Steve said. “It’s extremely rare in my experience for ghosts to just suddenly vanish without encouragement never to return.”

  “Yeah. Ghosts often have unfinished business. I really don’t think that the ghosts here are finished. And my senses say they’re going to come back tonight.” Eddie stood up. He grabbed the bottle of Stephenson’s Herbal Healing Tonic and rolled it around mindlessly in his hands.

  “Who’s willing to spend tonight here?” he asked.

  All hands, even Lily’s, went up. Maya and Penny laughed.

  “That would have been weird for you suddenly not to be here,” Penny said.

  “I’ve come this far, so it’s only right that I see this through with you guys.” Lily stopped massaging Maya and got up from the sofa. “I’ll get some beds ready for you.”

  Once they had retrieved some overnight things from their homes, they settled down in the rooms where they’d be staying that night. Steve and Eddie would stay downstairs in the study while Julie and Penny stayed in Richard and Kate’s old bedroom. Jason would stay in the smallest of the guest rooms. They all thought it was a good idea for Maya to stay in Lily’s room.

  “Are you sure that’s necessary?” said Maya. Lily smiled at her. Maya wished she knew what Lily was thinking. Her teammates all nodded eagerly. Maya had no problem guessing what they were thinking. There was only one bed in Lily’s room, but Maya had an idea.

  “Do you have a sleeping bag I can borrow?” Maya said, turning to Lily. Her smile did not dim.

  Maya scowled to the team as she followed Lily to find a sleeping bag that had most likely been owned by her Uncle Richard. They headed upstairs. Penny followed.

  “I wanna grab my video equipment,” she said.

  Maya cleared out a spot on the floor alongside Lily’s bed. Lily went to get some sheets and a pillow for Maya from the linen closet down the hall. Penny was slowly and deliberately getting her camera equipment ready to be taken down.

  “You’re being a little pokey there. What are you up to?” asked Maya.

  “Depends,” she said. “What are you up to?”

  “I don’t want any blurred lines.” Maya unrolled the sleeping bag and coughed. She was excited and nervous about sleeping so close to Lily. Whenever Lily was around, Maya felt her body hum and reverberate, like a tuning fork that had been struck. Keep it professional, girl.

  Penny cleared her throat. “It’s a little dusty. Are you sure you want to sleep here on the floor?”

  Maya smoothed out the sleeping bag. “I’m sure. It’ll be fine. I’ll spread a sheet on top of it. Lily’s gonna get me a pillow, too. Besides, I doubt I’ll be doing much sleeping.”

  Penny raised her eyebrows.

  “Oh stop,” Maya said. “You know what I mean. None of us will be getting much sleep because we want to be alert for when the ghosts make their next appearance, which could be tonight. We’re so close to solving this. Stop trying to fix me up. Get out of the gutter and step up onto the curb with the rest of us.”

  “Well, let me know how you feel about getting out of the gutter after Lily’s given you another neck massage,” Penny s
aid, finally finishing her camera clean-up.

  “Shhh… This is uncomfortable enough.” Maya kept smoothing out the sleeping bag even though it was as smooth as it would get. She was doing that thing she did when she was nervous and excited—giving her hands something to do even if it was just busy work.

  Lily came into the room, sheets and pillow in hand. “Who are you shushing? Have they come back?”

  “No. She’s shushing me because I’m a gutter dweller. You ladies have a good night,” said Penny as she walked out.

  “Gutter dweller?” said Lily. “I thought we just had ghosts. Anything else I need to know about? What’s been going on in here?” She squatted down next to Maya and placed fresh linen and a pillow on the floor next to the sleeping bag.

  “Nothing. Just friendly ghost hunter banter.” Maya hoped her smile didn’t look too fake. She put her hands in her lap.

  Lily regarded Maya with amused suspicion, but Maya offered no further explanation. Lily straightened up and went over to the bed. “I don’t believe that for a second, but I’ll let it pass. For now.”

  Later, after the lights had been turned off and Lily seemed to be asleep, a nervous calm settled over the house. Maya sat up on the sleeping bag with her knees drawn close to her chest. In the dark, she had time to think about Julie and their stalled romantic relationship, although she wondered if she could characterize it as stalled since it had never really started. She’d known that Julie had some lingering issues with an ex, but she thought that if the two of them had started dating then Julie would get over her ex faster. Her attraction to Julie wasn’t completely dead. It seemed to have become an irritation more than anything else. She felt like Julie had led her on and that she had allowed herself to be led on, but the truth was probably more complicated.

  And then there was Lily. She tried not to think about her too much for fear that Lily, who was lying in bed only a couple of feet away, would somehow be able to sense that Maya was thinking about her. They had been flirting a bit and the more time they spent together the stronger Maya’s attraction to her became. She’d never spoken with Steve about the reality of mixing business with pleasure. He and Eddie had been together for years and married recently after it became legal, but she knew they weren’t always monogamous. She didn’t know the details of their arrangement or the rules they followed, but their nonmonogamy didn’t mean that either one of them had ever had a non-business relationship with a client. She made a mental note to ask Steve about that. He was her mentor, after all, and in this situation it seemed like relevant information.