Ghost Trippin'

by Cherie Claire

  Everything looks as it did years ago, including the cleanliness of the place. Someone’s been keeping the old homestead up and for a second I wonder if it’s been rented out and some sleepyhead will come waltzing down the stairs brandishing a shotgun. I figure I better check out the place, so I drop my pizza slice for now — Van Halen was right, it’s that good — and I wonder through the dining room, flipping on switches. The old china remains in the sideboard next to turn-of-the-century ceramics and knick knacks, the family photos still line the walls, and fake plants dot the room so real looking I stick my finger in the pots checking for soil. I gaze out on to the back porch and find rocking chairs in place, but no bodies, although a soft breeze disrupted one so I look twice to make sure.

  I exhale, but the anxiety rises again as I tread up the stairs once again flipping on every light switch. No sleeping people in the master bedroom, the bed of which still contains Grandma Willow’s quilt she purchased from the women at Gee’s Bend, a nearby rural African American community that’s been creating these gorgeous quilts for more than a century. The “Diamonds in Squares” quilt explodes in colors of auburn, magenta, and a variety of deep blues and I want to jump into that softness and let it envelope me, forget about people hiding in closets, my apparent latent witch talents, and the horrific events of the past two days.

  Instead, I swallow down my escapist desires and head to the master bathroom, pushing the door open slowly with one finger, its hinges squeaking eerily like in a horror movie.

  “Seriously?” I ask the air.

  Once the door hits the wall, I peer inside. Thankfully the shower curtain has been left pulled back so no psycho waits for me there. Towels are stacked neatly on top of the toilet, the tub’s clean and fresh. Nothing seems askew.

  Just as I’m about to turn and resume my exploration, I notice there’s prescription medicine on the sink and a lone toothbrush, which gives me the heebie-jeebies, those weird shivers that slide through you from your toes to the ends of your hair follicles. I think to look at the name on the prescription bottle but I hear a sound coming from the spare bedroom, so I slip back into the hallway calling out, “Is someone there?”

  There’s no answer so I stealthily enter the other bedroom and flick on the switch. The room lights up but once again, everything remains clean, neat, and in its place, sans humans. I peek into the hall bath and fling open the shower curtain but there’s no psycho waiting there either.

  It’s then I spot the noise maker. The window shutter outside the bathroom is flapping loose in the breeze. I’m grateful it’s a small shutter so the sound is slight, but my heart beats rapidly. I open the window and pull the shutter in so I can latch it properly. Once secure, I close the window, lean back against the wall, and force an exhale. I’m mostly convinced no one is here but the hairs on the back of my neck fail to relax. I can’t help thinking I’m not alone.

  After a thorough examination of the downstairs again, my stomach growls so I grab the pizza box and glass of bourbon — of course I bring the bottle with me — and slip into the comfy chair by the fireplace. That pepperoni slice isn’t halfway to my lips when the upstairs window shutter comes loose again, hits the side of the house and I jump. For not the first time since I entered this old house I wonder about ghosts.

  Apparitions and I go way back, been seeing the walking dead since I was a child. Back then, though, no one believed me or they labeled me crazy so I told the ghosts to fade away.

  And they did.

  Then Katrina hit and I ended up on my roof and the trauma of the storm reopened that psychic door.

  I’m called a SCANC, although I despise that stupid acronym. It stands for specific communication with apparitions, non-entities and the comatose and for me, that means water. In a nutshell, for those who repress their abilities trauma will kick it back — and then only in the realm of that trauma.

  In other words, I only see ghosts who have died by water.

  I can’t imagine the ghosts that may linger at Grandma Willow’s homestead will be ones that I’m able to see, but I don’t rule it out either. It’s why I’m here, really. When I first learned of my ghostly talent, I thought the universe had granted me my wish to see my beloved Lillye again, who died way too young of cancer. Even though those in the know insist that SCANCS cannot see ghosts outside their specification, I keep pushing for ways to evolve my “gift.”

  It’s one reason TB’s not talking to me right now. He’s come to grips with Lillye’s death, believes she lives on in his heart. I haven’t given up trying to see my precious angel, and I have put myself and TB in harm’s way trying to prove being a SCANC will allow me to cross that threshold. I mean, really, why else would I have been given this strange talent if not to see the one person I miss in all the world?

  It’s also the reason why I’m here. In the process of trying to meet Lillye I followed a man with nefarious intentions who promised me contact. TB saved my butt, but along the way I discovered I was a witch. Apparently, one in a long line that includes Grandma Willow and Aunt Mimi and Goddess knows who else. I chuckle at that last thought because I have no idea what a goddess is.

  My appetite gone, I drop the pizza crust into the box, lean my head back and sigh. I close my eyes and enjoy the bourbon’s warm burn in my gut. But despite the comfort it offers tears slip through.

  “Grandma Willow, please help me,” I whisper.

  The window shutter flaps against the outside walls, like someone tapping at the door. That slight breeze flutters down the chimney and stirs the ashes, which ascend like angels in a circle of dust. But, for the most part, the house remains quiet and still.

  Until a voice sounds.

  “I’m right here.”

  I open my eyes, expecting my witchy grandmother but the voice is masculine. Standing in front of me, clear as day, is my father.

  “Hey babe,” he says.

  Chapter Two

  I bolt upright and kick the bourbon bottle at my feet, which goes spinning across the room.

  “Dad?”

  He’s standing in front of me in faded jeans, a buttoned-down shirt, and his ugly beige jacket with a half dozen pockets and stains from fishing. He perches on the arm of the sofa in front of me, looking concerned.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  I shake my head because this doesn’t make sense. “Dad, you left us….”

  “You look tired, sweetheart. I’m worried about you.”

  Dad smiles, that half-paternal, half-professorial look he must have given hundreds of students at Loyola. John Valentine spent years teaching biology at the New Orleans college until he was promoted to Dean of Students, and was always patient, always understanding.

  “Worried about me?” I lean forward in my chair to get a good look at my father sitting there so calm as if he doesn’t have a problem in the world. “Where have you been?”

  He smiles and I notice there are no creases in his face, and he shows no surprise at finding his daughter sleeping in the living room of her grandmother’s house. No problem that I haven’t spoken to him since before Katrina.

  “Your Aunt Mimi wasn’t using the place,” he begins.

  “Aunt Mimi knew about this?”

  I’m shocked, to say the least, that my aunt would withhold this information. My sister Portia has been tracking my dad since he left and, even though he would touch base with her every once in a while, he always eluded us.

  I say us. I refused to have anything to do with him after he evaporated the week our lives washed away.

  John shrugs. “The old place was vacant and Mimi wasn’t using it.”

  “And you’ve been here all this time?” I practically yell.

  John rises and walks to the fireplace, gazes up at the floral wall hanging that looks like it came out of a 1960s detergent box. Actually, I think it did.

  “You don’t look good, Sweetpea,” he says softly. “Are you getting
enough sleep? I’m really worried about you.”

  He looks at me the loving way he used to when I was a girl, those hazel eyes glowing in the light of the living room lamp, that calm demeanor. My anger burns up my chest because one, he looks amazing, as if he never abandoned his family and disappeared, and two, he has no right to worry about me after no contact during one of the worst times of my life. I’m about to say as much when he gazes toward the door, then crosses the living room, and appears to be heading for the kitchen.

  “Where are you going?” I ask his retreating form as he disappears around the corner. “Of course, that’s the eternal question, isn’t it?”

  This time, I do yell.

  “Vi?” comes a voice from the porch, followed by harsh knocking. “Is that you?”

  I sit up in my chair and find my head pounding.

  “Vi.” The knocking continues. “Vi, answer me.”

  I stumble toward the door, knocking over the bourbon bottle at my feet, and as I get closer witness my cousin Tabitha looking through the side windows. I open the door and the light nearly blinds me.

  Tabitha squeals with delight, hugs me, then steps back.

  “Good grief, girl,” Tabitha says in a sugar-sweet Alabama accent. “You look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet.”

  I look down at myself and realize I’ve been in the same clothes for two days and my hair must be a sight. I’m afraid to open my mouth and have moths fly out. That, or a bad stench.

  I place a hand over my mouth in case something emerges. “You could say that.”

  She moves past me into the house, gazing around the living room. “Who were you talking to?”

  I suddenly remember Dad, so I take off for the kitchen and look around, but the room’s empty, everything the way I left it the night before. I gaze into the back dining room.

  “Dad?” I ask the walls.

  “What did you say?” Tabitha has followed me into the back of the house.

  I scratch my head like a character from an old cartoon. “My dad, he was right here.”

  Tabitha gives me a sad smile; she knows our family history and how John Valentine disappeared several days before the nation’s worst natural disaster.

  “He was right here,” I insist.

  She places a hand on my forearm and it’s now I notice that she’s recovered the bourbon, holding it high for me to see. “Honey, you were probably dreaming. Looks like you found Aunt Mimi’s stash.”

  “I had one glass.”

  I can hear the defensiveness in my voice and Tabitha reacts with another patronizing smile. “O-kay,” she says, with a bless-your-heart grin.

  Suddenly, I think of Dad’s quick departure when my cousin arrived. Maybe he’s here secretly and doesn’t want her to know. He could be hiding in the closet as we speak.

  I smile as if nothing happened. “You’re right. Probably a dream.”

  “Yeah,” she says slowly and with three syllables. “What are you doing here?”

  I’m searching my mind for a way to explain how last week a descendant of Lucifer wanted me to help him steal souls for his immortality, and how a descendant of Gabriel explained that my simple-minded husband was also a descendant of angels, “double-sided” from both parents through Archangel Michael. Then, after I made a series of bad decisions, TB saved us both from a soul-less death outside Natchez in a place ironically called the Devil’s Punchbowl. Should I also mention how this Lucifer wanna-be explained I was a witch and the only place I thought to find answers was this lonely farm in the middle of rural Alabama?

  Before I can come up with a benign answer, Tabitha squeals again. “I know!” she announces. “You’re here for my special event.”

  I begin combing the reaches of my brain, trying to get past the trauma of the last few days to remember what Tabitha had recently sent me. An invitation of some sort. “Think, Vi, think,” I command myself, but nothing’s coming. Tabitha’s smile’s fading so I start doing what I always do when I can’t remember someone’s name, I start a series of deductions. It’s November, so it could be a Thanksgiving thing.

  “Is the family coming over for Thanksgiving?” I ask.

  She tilts her head. “Not for a couple weeks.”

  It’s cold outside and Christmas is coming.

  “All of them coming, even your mom from Atlanta? Or are they waiting for Christmas?”

  She stamps her foot this time. “Vi, you know what today is. You’re just teasing me.”

  I smile sweetly but I still can’t remember. But it doesn’t matter to Tabitha, who slides a hand through my elbow and pulls me toward the door.

  “Did you bring a dress?”

  We pause at the threshold, the door still open, and that bright light blinding. “What time is it?” I ask.

  “You’ve slept late and if we’re going to get you into shape, we need to act now.”

  I gaze at my cousin and take in what she’s wearing. And not. She’s in full makeup mode: foundation, three shades of eye shadow, fake eyelashes and mascara, trimmed eyebrows and lipstick outlined by pencil. Her highlighted blonde hair has been meticulously coifed and she’s wearing earrings and a pearl necklace. She’s even donned pantyhose and high heels shoes, although she’s covered by a house gown.

  “I save the piece de resistance for last,” Tabitha says when she notices me noticing. She pronounces it the English way, “pieces of resistance.”

  This event, whatever it is, must be something fancy, my mind deduces, although some Southern women dress this way to have breakfast. Notice I said “some.”

  “I just got in from a week-long press trip.” I nod toward my car. “Everything I have is dirty, I’m afraid. And I didn’t RSVP….”

  She squeals again and I wince, then Tabitha grabs my elbow and pulls me toward the house talking non-stop, everything from how I’ve never had much skill in clothes and makeup but she’ll take care of that, how this is a special occasion and we must look our best, to the recent success of her husband in his new real estate career and how they now have season tickets to the Alabama football games.

  As we head to her mammoth house, she nods towards the pool.

  “He recently sold a house worth half a million, isn’t that awesome? It paid for our new pool.”

  I’m thinking who would have a house worth that much in this neck of the woods but I instead answer, “That’s great.”

  “And Belle just made cheerleading squad. First time to try out and they loved her, didn’t even have to perform in the finals. They just grabbed her right up.”

  “How wonderful.”

  This is when I turn into a robot and offer endless sweet acknowledgements.

  “Shelby has a part in the Christmas pageant,” Tabitha continues as if she doesn’t need to pause for air. “It’s small but it’s a good one. No small parts, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Cus is still playing football. That boy has such an arm on him. His coach thinks he’ll be the new Payton Manning.”

  “Isn’t he six?”

  Tabitha ignores my question. “Don’t you just love my garden? Burton Landscaping costs an arm and a leg but it’s worth it, don’t you think? I mean, those roses alone cost me a grand.”

  A thousand dollars for rose bushes? “They’re lovely.”

  She pauses while we walk up the grand steps to the porch, but before we enter the house shows me her two hundred dollar wind chimes tuned like a symphony. Tabitha leans in close. “Jerry made six figures last year. We’re going to London after the season.”

  Season. Is one of her children a debutante?

  I try to remember the last set of photos I received from her but I’m pretty sure the young Macons are still in elementary school. Or, at least the oldest, Belle, hasn’t yet passed the middle grades. Dang, why can’t I remember?

  Tabitha opens the door wide to a living room Payton Manning would love to play football in. The ceiling stretches to the second floor with a massive fireplace on one en
d, while straight ahead the open floor plan flows into a kitchen that’s bigger than my entire apartment, patio, and driveway. But the place is covered, and I mean covered, in Bama sports attire with tiny elephants everywhere.

  “Look who I found,” Tabitha announces to her husband Jerry who’s enjoying a beer while stretched out on a sectional couch with his feet on a crimson-colored ottoman with my alma mater’s nemesis written on top. Jerry gives me a slight glance but returns to his television watching.

  “Good to see you, too, Jerry.”

  I think a grunt emerges but it could have been a belch. The man was never much for words, but then his wife more than makes up for it. Tabitha’s pep slips down a notch at Jerry’s inattention and for a moment I feel sorry for her. When she notices me staring, she shrugs.

  “He’d be coming to the luncheon today but Alabama’s playing LSU.”

  Luncheon. Must be one of her many social groups but which one?

  Tabitha grabs my hand and leads me away. “Come on, now. We have work to do.”

  As I pass the sofa I lean closer to Jerry and glance at the TV. It’s the first quarter and LSU is up by a touchdown. I try to remain impassive but I can’t help but chuckle. Jerry sends me the evil eye.

  It’s then I notice the Christmas tree. And it’s anything but red and green.

  “You’re the queen of Conventina this year!”

  Tabitha places her hands on her hips and tilts her head, the way I’ve seen her do ever since she placed in her first beauty pageant. “Of course.”

  I point to the tree covered in Mardi Gras ornaments, garland, and tinsel, all done up in the Carnival colors of purple, green, and gold. Every few inches are tiny photos of Tabitha in her Carnival gown. “Uh, I was just reminded by the Mardi Gras tree.”