Ghost Of A Chance

by Nancy Henderson

  It was always something with Stan. For the last year, it had been Stan's quest to alert NASA that he’d contacted another planet. “Signals” were coming through the satellite dish, he insisted, and would hold for someone of authority to talk to him. Of course, they never did, but Stan kept calling. And the phone bills kept coming.

  “Give him a hug from me.”

  “I will.” Mother sighed again. “I still don't see why you moved up there.”

  “Oh, come on. You liked it here. You and Dad had that camp here when I was little. Don't you remember?”

  “I remember the bugs.”

  “And the shopping?”

  “And the work,” Mother answered. “Your father never took me out to dinner, made me slave over that awful grill because he was too cheap to buy a decent stove. Do you remember that?”

  Sarah mentally laughed as she remembered the jokes she shared with her father about Mom burning off her eyebrows.

  “Do you want me to come up there?”

  It would be so easy to say yes. Just one word and Mom would be here in a day’s time. Here to turn everything to chaos, but to make it all better. A heaviness settled on her. She couldn't give in now. She had to start a new life, without her past. At least for a month or so. Just enough time to prove to everyone she could do this. She didn't know if that was the right decision. In fact, she still wasn’t sure if moving here was the right choice. Every single person back home had been against it. They all said she was running away from her problems. Maybe she was. Yes, she was quite certain she was, but she had to face facts. Her husband--no, her ex-husband, wasn't coming back. She didn't know when she'd come out of her denial. It was something that had just happened as suddenly as waking up one morning and ridding him out of her system. Not that it hadn't hurt. Or that it still didn't hurt. The divorce had been final, the house she loved sold, all their belongings divvied up. And it was over. For six months, Art had gone on with his new life with his girlfriend, and everyone was accusing her of running away. Why shouldn't she start a new life as well?

  She would do it on her own. Even if she was breaking apart inside.

  * * *

  Nathan watched the people pass below him as he paced the bastion wall. He’d

  been watching them for what seemed like hours and no one—not one soul—had even looked up and seen him. More Crown soldiers came and went without recognition. Some brought people up to the bastion and demonstrated the use of the cannons. Each time, a soldier would give a recount of Fort William’s slaughter and surrender. Each retelling was a bit different, but they all had one thing in common. They were told with no emotion. It was almost as if the soldiers were reciting it from memory, not the sort of memory one would have from actually being present, but the rehearsed repetition of a tale told over and over. These men hadn’t actually lived through the French attack. Had they been there, they would not have been able to give account without breaking apart inside.

  And that was probably the only thing Nathan was certain of right now.

  There was no getting around it. He would have to go down there, to that strange world, and he would have to find this Sarah Price. She would know where, exactly, he was and why he was visible only to her.

  He mentally tried to picture her face. It wasn’t a face that was easy to his memory. It was plain, not one which a man would find distinguishable. She certainly had no special qualities, other than her arrogance, which she seemed to wear like a badge. Like it was something she’d perfected and polished until it shined.

  Finding her meant he would have to go down there, to that strange word.

  The very thought unnerved him.

  He hurried downstairs to what had once been his sleeping quarters. Only now, the room was sealed in glass. All the soldiers’ bunks were gone except one. This was not his first time down here since he’d ‘appeared’ back at the fort. He didn’t know what he expected to change coming in here again. Nothing was normal. Three statues of soldiers were still there on display. Their eyes were wide, lifeless, and the longer he stared at them the more his uneasiness grew.

  He went to the dungeon. He always hated working down here. Strangely, it now gave him some comfort, minimal as it was. Dampness tightened his lungs with each breath as he walked down the long corridor. The prison cells were to his right. It had always been noisy down here. Most of the prisoners were French, and Nathan couldn’t understand them, but they were always shouting. Now it was deathly quiet.

  Down the end, he came to the guard post. Glass enclosed the tiny room, and there were more statues on display. A large sign stood near the chimney. A list of names. All this reading! He slammed his fists into the glass. He had to get out of here.

  He hurried upstairs, crossed the courtyard, entered the peddlers shop where he’d

  run into Sarah Price, and escaped outside.

  The dry moat was still there, but that was all. Everything else was different. A large building, larger than anything he’d ever seen stood next to the fort. People were everywhere. No one looked up or made eye contact with him.

  A summer breeze blew up and chilled him to the bone. He pulled his jacket

  tighter around himself. He hadn’t been warm since coming back here. Maybe he was getting sick. He thought of the others who had died of smallpox. Before the surrender, Fort William was burying three to four soldiers a day.

  He pushed the thought from his mind and thought of Sarah Price. She’d said

  something about Canada Street. He wondered what road he was on now.

  He walked a ways, descended a flight of steps which led toward the lake. Little shops were everywhere. Sarah Price said she sold books. She must be in one of these shops.

  He stared in each of the windows. Brightly colored clothing, aromas of food, things he had absolutely no idea what purpose they served. But no books.

  He gaped at the horseless carriages going by, wondered how on earth they were powered without horses. Some people pedaled carriages with two wheels. Others whizzed by on shoes or boards with wheels attached to the bottoms.

  Canada Street. Books.

  He crossed the busy road, and there in front of him he found it.

  Books.

  Sarah Price was standing behind a large glass window bearing a picture of a worm with spectacles which matched the papers she’d given him. She didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the crowds of people walking past. Books were stacked by her feet and on a table she was arranging.

  She wore a black sleeveless bodice and tan breeches which left her ankles exposed. Mousy brown hair tangled around her shoulders as if she hadn’t given her appearance a second thought. He wondered for a brief second why she was working here, why no one was supporting her. He hoped to God she could tell him what was happening to him.

  This was the first time he had ever initiated a conversation with a woman. It set foreign on his mind. There was Jane, of course. There was no forgetting Jane, but she was always the one to set things with a man.

  What if Sarah didn’t see him? All around him crowds were passing by him as if

  he didn’t exist. If she didn’t see him—

  She looked up.

  At first, he assumed she must be watching someone else on the street. When he

  turned around to see, he saw no one looking back.

  She motioned for him to come inside.

  Relief released panic’s grip on him. She could see him! She could see him, and

  she would set things straight. He had no idea how, but she would. She had to.

  He turned the brass knob on the front door. A bell sounded as he entered, and he

  jumped.

  She must have seen him jump, because she laughed softly as she came out from

  behind the window display.

  “I was searching for you,” he blurted.

  Her expression was puzzled.

  “The other day—”

  “Is there a problem with my flyers?”

 
; Flyers?

  Her eyes roamed the length of him. She frowned, as if she disapproved. “How come you don’t wear red?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The other workers at the fort…the soldiers.” She motioned toward his clothing. “They all wear red uniforms.”

  Nathan looked down at his civilian clothing. He had never been one for looking his best, and he supposed he must seem a vagrant to her. “Those are Crown issued. I enlisted of my own will.”

  “So you don’t get to wear a uniform?”

  “Of course not.” He straightened his jacket. Even inside, he was still cold. “I’m a volunteer.”

  “So you do all of this and they don’t even pay you?” She moved a stack of books. “You must really enjoy history.”

  Nathan didn’t know what she meant. He followed her to the rows of shelves and watched her set the books on them, adjust them by size, and then move on to more. Her movements were quick and hurried. Just watching her made him nervous.

  “I came to find you.” He raised his voice so she might stop stacking the damnable books. Thankfully, it worked. “I don’t know what has happened.”

  Without thinking, he put his hands on her shoulders. She dropped the books she

  held.

  “Take your hands off me!”

  “What is the year?”

  “Let go of me!”

  He knew he was frightening her, but he refused to let go. “No one can see me except you.”

  She pulled out of his grip and stumbled back.

  “Leave or I’m calling the police.”

  Nathan stepped toward her, but she pushed him. She shoved him again and pushed him out the door. She quickly bolted it.

  Nathan watched her run to the counter. She picked something up and placed it to her ear. He’d never meant to frighten her, but he couldn’t just leave. She was the only one who could see him. He had no idea where he was, why or how this had happened. But she must have something to do with it.

  Energy charged him so fast he didn’t know what hit him. Every nerve within him came alive. He felt the feeling rush from his limbs. Intense light blinded him. He came in contact with the store. His being became fluid and absorbed into the wall. He felt the brick structure become one with his own flesh. In an instant, it entered, passed through and exited his body. Then as if nothing had happened, he was back to normal.

  Only it wasn’t normal. He was inside the bookstore.

  And Sarah Price fainted before him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sarah felt someone tapping the side of her face. She opened her eyes and saw the stranger.

  For a moment, as she drifted between consciousness and reality, she studied his eyes. The irises had no color whatsoever. They were clean, perfectly clear, and yet she detected something…movement within them, circling the cornea.

  Recalling what he’d just done and who—or what—he was, she bolted upright and screamed.

  He clamped a hand on her mouth. His hand was cold. So cold. She suddenly couldn’t stop trembling.

  “Don’t scream again. Please.”

  She nodded. Anything to stop him from touching her.

  He released his hand from her mouth and leaned back. Sarah sat up. She bolted toward the back wall. “Who are you? W-what are you? What do you want?”

  “I am Nathan McGraw. I report to Captain Saltonfhall of the 35th Regiment of the King’s Army. I—”

  “I don’t want to hear anymore of this ridiculous war garbage!”

  He held his hands up as if he were surrendering.

  “You—” She couldn’t stop her voice from quivering. She was going crazy. No doubt about it now. “You’re not real.”

  “I’m the same as you.”

  “I can’t walk through walls! You aren’t real, that’s all. You’re just—I’ve been under a lot of stress. You’re a product of that. Th—that’s all!”

  He moved in front of her.

  “Don’t talk to me.”

  “You can see me when no one else can.”

  “Because I’m crazy,” she answered. She ran her hand through her hair. “Oh God, I’m nuts.”

  “What year is this?”

  “Get out.”

  “Tell me the year.”

  She threw a stack of books at him. She expected to hurt him. She didn’t—

  They sailed right through him.

  Through him!

  She was going to faint again.

  “I will go now,” He held his hands up. “But I will be return.”

  And he vanished.

  * * *

  Fort William was the last place Nathan wanted to go back to, but as he left Sarah

  Price, he decided he had nowhere else to go.

  He quickly zigzagged his way through the crowds of people who did not—and could not—see him and didn’t stop until he was back to the fort. He tried the handle on the huge door, but it wouldn’t open. Why was it locked?

  Panic seized him. If he couldn’t get in, he’d have to stay out here—with these strange people—all night. It crossed his mind to go back to Sarah Price, but he didn’t want to frighten her anymore than he already had. At least not yet.

  He recalled what had happened with her, how he had mysteriously vaporized—is that what he’d done?—through the wall of her building. It was almost too impossible to believe.

  If he could just do it again—he couldn’t possibly, could he?—but if he could…

  He mentally went over what he might have done to cause it to happen. Certainly nothing special. He’d been standing outside the building, and he’d been frustrated because she had pushed him outside.

  His heart jolted. He’d been thinking that he wished he were inside.

  Could it be that simple? That all he had to do was think of where he wanted to go and he would just appear there?

  Nathan shut his eyes. And he wished he were inside Fort William.

  Suddenly, it happened again. The same tingling sensation; the feeling as if he were coming right out of his very soul. The beams of the fort’s walls touched him, passed through him, and suddenly he was inside.

  He was in the little store that was connected to the fort. He hurried toward the door which led into the courtyard. He pushed it open—this one wasn’t locked—and entered the courtyard.

  Four dogs stopped him in his tracks. They were larger than John’s rabbit hounds. The one closest to him smelled the air. It tilted its head, pinned back its black ears and crouched.

  It saw him.

  Nathan held out his hand. “Hello, boy.”

  A low growl began in the dog’s belly. The hair went up along its spine.

  “C’mon, boy. It’s all right.”

  Nathan was greeted with a full row of teeth. He took a step forward. The entire pack jumped back.

  The leader wildly sniffed the air. His eyes were wide, darting from side to side. Either the dog was blind or—

  Or it couldn’t see him anymore than people could.

  The dog could certainly sense him.

  Disappointment washed over him. John’s dogs had always greeted him with wagging tongues and tails. He’d never had an animal act unfriendly toward him, in fact. There was that stud horse he’d sold to old man Fielding before he went to war, but he hadn’t had time to break him, that was all.

  He wondered why the dogs had been let inside. Night was rapidly coming. Maybe they’d been let in to stand guard. He wondered why. There was certainly nothing of value left here. It was just an abandoned fort filled with the remnants of death and disease.

  Still unable to come to terms with the fact that animals didn’t even see him, he went to his quarters. What was once his quarters, anyway. He sank to the floor, hugged his knees to his chest.

  He’d badly frightened Sarah Price today. He hadn’t meant to, but he supposed

  there was no other way around it. He was dead. He supposed if he had seen a ghost, his reaction would have been the same.

  Dead.
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  Nathan didn’t know which was greater: the disbelief or the emptiness. His mind

  had never felt so full, yet it was so empty. And tired. The sort of tired felt after experiencing something tragic, something so terrible it hurt to think of.

  He was dead.

  You were shot by French crossfire.

  The thought came to him without warning. At first it was foreign, then it crept in

  and settled. He’d been shot right before he was to go home.

  He tore open his buff vest and stared down at his linsey-woolsey shirt. No holes

  or stains.

  He opened his shirt, felt along his rib cage. Near his one—two—three—his fourth rib was a tiny indent. His fingers trailed along his back and found a place where the skin appeared to be puckered. The scar of a larger hole. The exit wound.

  His chest heaved as if someone had struck him with a mallet. A picture formed at the forefront of his memory. He’d been sitting at the base of a tree. Gunfire and death cries sang out all round him. The black powder smoke had been so thick, he could barely breathe, much less see. He’d held on for a while, waited for reinforcements to arrive, but none had.

  He’d been promised full compensation upon reaching Fort Edward. Then he could go home. But he’d never reached Fort Edward.

  Because he had died.

  On August 10, 1757, he had died.

  His throat swelled until he felt as if he’d swallowed his Adam’s Apple. He stared

  at the floor until his vision blurred. He couldn’t remembered the last time he’d cried. He thought of his father, who never cried. Leastwise, not in front of him. It simply wasn’t done.

  What sort of man cried over his own death?

  The question was almost surreal. He wondered if his family had ever learned of

  his death or if they always wondered what had become of him. Visions of John and his wife, Anne, who had been more than six months pregnant when he’d enlisted, swam in his mind. Ma had gone on and on about becoming a grandmother.

  Now they all were dead too.

  Suddenly, there was nothing he could do to hold back his tears.