by Kim Hornsby
When I entered my room, I half-expected Rachel lollygagging in my bed, but didn’t hear anything, No snoring, no laptop streaming, no commenting that I looked like death warmed over. I guess she’d truly moved out. I wasn’t disappointed but was skeptical how long it would last now that she had no protector from ghosts in her room down the hall.
I got ready for bed with the idea that my tryst with Caspian might continue tonight. At least I hoped it would. In the shower, I shaved my legs and hoped I got all the spots by feeling for stubble. I creamed my arms and legs after I dried off and made sure my toenails hadn’t grown to curling over proportions. I dried my hair, standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, habit, and dabbed a touch of my favorite perfume on at the nape of my neck--L’Eau D’Izzy. Feeling like I was putting more into this sleep than was probably necessary, I gave myself a pep talk about not being disappointed if my hunky pirate didn’t come visit me tonight. It didn’t work and I got into bed, hopeful. I didn’t slink down into the covers. Instead, I sat there seductively, arranging the covers around my waiting form and as sexy as I could manage, tried to summon my man.
“Caspian? Are you with me here? Can you hear me?” I continued this way for about thirty minutes until I finally gave up. Eventually, I slid down in the bed and closed my eyes to find sleep and who knew what else might come in the middle of the night.
My mother arrived in the room before I’d even lost consciousness. “I just can’t stay in that room,” she said making her way towards my bed.
“Too scary?” I mumbled from my pillow.
“Ron and I broke up,” she said.
Now, I was fully awake. “What happened?”
Rachel pulled back the covers to get in beside me and sniffed, like she was crying. “I think he was using me to get to you,” she said flopping around to get her comfortable position. “And he’s considering getting back with his ex-wife,” she added.
The first one didn’t surprise me but Rachel saying it out loud did. People used her all my life to get to me. “Which is the worse crime?” I asked.
“Using me to get to you.”
I felt badly for my mother. That sucked. “I’m sorry.”
Rachel never asked for my advice in love, or for my predictions, something I’d always found curious.
“Why do you think he was using you to get to me?”
“He told me just now on the phone.”
“What a prick!” I sat up in bed, ready to drive to Ron’s stupid onion apartment and sock him in the jaw. “Why would he say that to you?”
“Probably because when he said he and his ex-wife are giving it another go, I told him I was relieved to never have to pretend he was good in bed.”
I swiveled to face my mother. “You didn’t?”
“I did. Then the conversation got heated and he finished with he used me to get to you.”
“What did you finish with?” I could only imagine.
“I simply said that because he was such a stupid cop, he needed an extra edge like my talented daughter.”
I laughed out loud. Soon Rachel joined me.
“Easy come, easy go,” my mother said.
“If you want to stick it to him, tell him we know who killed Mrs. G and dangle that over his head.” Eve had taken a photo of the pages of automatic writing and when she’d given them back to Ron, she’d conveniently neglected to include the final page. Jimmy’s mother had translated the Italian and just before we left Floatville, Eve confided in me. Mrs. G’s words from the grave had said “and you know what car monkey had access to that,” never giving the name of her killer but she didn’t need to. Her daughter’s fiance was a mechanic with access to the exact poison that killed her.
“That no good rat of a fiance, Luigi,” my mother said. “Oh, poor Teresa. What a way to go. But she had the last word, didn’t she?” My mother was silent for a while. “I just might dangle that tidbit in Ron’s face, tell him we’re going to air the footage and name the killer.”
I was too tired to tell her we couldn’t air the footage or risk being arrested for interfering with an investigation. Besides, I wanted her to go to sleep happy. “Atta girl,” I whispered. “Bounce back with revenge.”
My eyes shut and I hoped Caspian didn’t arrive during the night, see my mother in bed with me and head out the door in disappointment.
***
When Carlos navigated his way to the kitchen the next morning, I had coffee made and was back wearing jeans and a big baggy sweater over a utility bra to hold what Harry had once called “God’s gifts.” L’Eau D’Izzy still clung to my neck but my night of not contacting Caspian had left me disappointed. Until I got downstairs, played back the recording, and texted Carlos to come listen.
“What do you think?” I asked Carlos.
We moved to the room with all the equipment and my tech wizard separated out the one word to bring to the forefront. As Carlos worked, I started a fire in the fireplace and settled into my favorite chair with my laptop.
I hadn’t told Carlos what I thought I’d heard, nor had I told him that I was sure our new ghost was a child so what Carlos said next sent chills up my spine verifying what I believed.
“It sounds like ‘Tommy’,” Carlos said through all the rewinding and playing of the few seconds of a miraculous breakthrough. “I think the voice belongs to a little boy.”
I assumed Carlos was looking at me. “I thought so too.” My heart sped up again to think that we had made contact with another ghost in Spook Central. “A child whose name was Tommy. That’s why I called Joan Hightower this morning to ask if she knew about a child dying in this house.” I paused for effect.
“And?” Carlos could probably see my smirk.
“And she told me that Tommy Cuthbertson died of typhoid fever in the house, leaving his parents grief-stricken. Charlotte took ill shortly after and died herself. Some said of a broken heart.”
“Aye chihuahua,” Carlos exclaimed. “You contacted another ghost.”
I hadn’t fully revealed to Carlos that Caspian and Moonraker, the cat, were only two of six ghosts. He and Eve knew I called Cove House Spook Central but had never asked if there were more ghosts beyond the ones I’d talked about. Even I wasn’t sure who the others were. Jacqueline was the third ghost, I knew that, and now I assumed Tommy was Ghost #4. I did not want Eve or Carlos to be freaked out by the sheer number of dead people floating around the place. Six ghosts were a lot, even if one was a Tabby cat. Maybe, Tommy’s mother was the fifth. When she’d died, the husband packed up and moved back east, selling Cove House to Stevens. Who was the sixth ghost though? Next time I saw Caspian, I was going to ask him to give me a list. The thing was, that every time I was with that man, all the things I meant to say or ask of him went flying out the window.
***
That day, after recounting the amazing encounter with Tommy to Eve, and filling her in on the Ron disaster, we planned our next investigation to take place at midnight. I’d suit up in something that made me look like a sexy rocker chick and ask anyone lingering in Spook Central to come through. We’d play the audio from the Ghost Box that said “Tommy” and let our peeps decide if the new ghost had given us his name. Our followers always had a lot to say on social media, some not very nice, but mostly offering theories about what was going on in the other layer of our haunted house.
Eve and Jimmy spent the day mostly holed up in their room and feeling restless, I decided a walk outside would be good for me. I’d been meaning to take Hodor to the beach again once we got back to Cove House and finding out that the day was not rainy, I asked Eve to supervise my first steps of an outing I wanted to take on my own. “Make sure I get on the trail and don’t topple over the edge of the cliff onto the rocks below.”
“Do you think you can manage the stairs down?” She’d asked as we walked across the lawn, me hanging on to Hodor’s harness handle.
“There’s a handrail, right?”
“Yes.”
�
��I did them with Caspian but maybe it would be good if you supervised. I’m pretty sure TapTap and Hodor can get me back up.” I couldn’t remember what the stairs were like on the day Caspian and I went to the beach because we’d been talking and laughing, and I’d taken my eyesight for granted.
The air felt like spring and I was elated to be wearing only jeans and a sweater outside on this not quite sunny day. Hodor took me down the stairs like a champion and as I managed the last step to the beach and found both feet on the sand, I dismissed Eve and set out in the direction of the surf. I could easily hear the ocean’s edge. So could Hodor. And he could see it, but even with the surf in sight, he took me a few steps until I took pity on him and removed the harness imagining him sprinting to the water. Memories of walking with Caspian flooded in.
I stood near the edge of the surf and held out my arms, letting the watery early May sunshine warm my face. I could hear Hodor splashing around in the surf, barking at the waves, but today I had something else on my agenda. I’d come to the beach for another reason too. I stood listening to the surf roll in against the sand and concentrated on how Caspian died. I had reason to believe that he drowned. Or more accurately, that he was knocked unconscious and thrown into the bay. I wanted something more concrete like a big ol’ fat clue. Maybe, if I had something to tell Caspian, he’d appear. I’d worried over the last days that he’d disappeared because I wasn’t holding up my part of the bargain by investigating his murder. But, in my own defense, being blind made it harder and the fact that he’d been dead one hundred and seventy years, made it almost impossible to investigate. Unless you have freaky psychic abilities. And I did.
Standing where the ocean met the sand, my arms flung out, my eyes closed, I appealed to that ability with everything I had. I emptied my mind of all the junk that usually circulates around in there and concentrated on Caspian. I had to put out of my mind my need to summon him and instead focus on what happened to him long ago that had him dying and passing from my world into another dimension. “How did you die, Caspian?” I said out loud.
I tried to take myself back to that night in 1855, when Caspian’s life was snuffed out in this bay. I found myself sinking lower and lower into a strange shade of darkness.
The light behind my eyelids went from black to brown. Spots appeared and I opened my eyes to see that the bay was now dark. Had I been here all afternoon? Impossible. Eve would never let me stand on the beach for hours. Or would she? Hodor was nowhere in sight.
As my eyes adjusted, I saw the dark form of something down the beach. There was no moon and it was hard to see what it was, but the size and shape told me that it might be a rowboat. Men’s voices spoke, words I didn’t understand until I realized they were speaking French. I walked closer to view the boat. Caspian was in the boat, passed out and slumped against the side, his hair loose and flowing over the gunwale. “Caspian!” I shouted. Two men looked my way and pushed off the sand, through the waves more insistently now that they knew someone had shouted their way. Caspian was being rowed out to his ship, now slumped to the bottom of the small boat. A gash bled from his head, his hair matted with blood. I couldn’t see most of this but the information came to me none the less. I imagined myself as a receptacle taking in the information. More. More, please.
A large ship was anchored in the bay, sails down, lanterns lit and it was from that light that I could barely make out the silhouette of the rowboat as it headed out. Music drifted from the house on the hill behind me as if a party was in session. I heard the shrill laughter of a woman. The waves rolled into the shore and I struggled to stand as I ventured out, watching the small craft. The cold waves hit my legs and continued around me.
The boat almost tipped over as if shaken by a huge wave and I heard a splash. Laughter followed. Had they tossed Caspian into the cold ocean. My legs were beginning to lose feeling, but I ventured out further. “Hey there!” I yelled as loud as my voice would go. “What’s going on?”
Was Caspian sinking? I took off. The swim was about seventy feet from where the boat was bobbing on the waves. I might not make it myself. Had Caspian sunk to the bottom already or was he buoyant on the surface? I had no idea, but I had to see.
My arms crashed on the water’s surface and my numb legs kicked me further out. If this was a premonition, I had no idea if I’d die or wake up. The rowboat turned to come back and as I swam near, an oar almost hit my head. I kept silent in case they decided to kill me too. When I got to where I believed Caspian had been thrown over, my arms searched to make contact with something solid. He wasn’t on the surface. Was he just below? My body was numb with the cold and I didn’t know how much longer I had before I drowned. “Caspian? Help!” I felt something against my foot and dove under, my arms searching in an arcing pattern. Hair. I felt hair and grabbed it with both hands. My lungs were going to burst if I didn’t get to the air soon. I kicked as hard as I could, pulling Caspian to the surface with me.
Gasping as I came up, I made sure his face was out of the water. Was he breathing? He didn’t gasp like me, taking in a breath of air. No! I had to get Caspian to shore. The ship was closer. Not by much but closer. I sealed my mouth across his, kicking to stay on the surface and gave him a big breath, hoping it might save his life. I saw a ladder on the side of the ship that met the water and as I pulled Caspian by his hair, careful to keep his face above the water line, I kept stopping to give him a breath. “Help!” I yelled. “Someone help us!” We had only forty feet to go when a man appeared at the railing with a lantern.
“Help!” I yelled. “The captain went overboard.” I was close to going under myself, holding on to Caspian around the neck, willing him to breathe. With my lips on his, I gave him four stacked breaths. “Please Caspian,” I said letting go of my pinch on his nose.
Someone yelled on deck and I heard excitement and scurrying. “Captain Cortez is in the water!”
“The captain,” someone shouted. “And a woman.” Orders were barked and a man scurried down the ladder. Footsteps scuffled above me on the ship’s deck. The young man reached for me first, but I shook my head. “Get the captain. He’s unconscious,” I said. “You’ll need to hoist him up.” Although the man looked extremely strong with beefy arms, I doubted he could carry Caspian up the ladder.
He reached for Caspian’s coat just as a rope was lowered. “Is he dead?” the man asked.
“I certainly hope not!”
As the rope was fixed under Caspian’s arms, the man gave a signal and from above us, the cargo was hoisted upwards. I watched Caspian’s dangling body disappear and worried that the men on board might not know CPR. I scurried up the ladder behind the sailor, his drips hitting me square in the face.
Commands were called to go for Ten Tooth. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Is the captain dead?” someone asked what we were all thinking as I rushed to Caspian’s body, now lying prone on the deck.
“Now, now, m ’lady,” a burly sailor said, resting a hand on my shoulder. “There’s nothing you can do now.”
I ignored his words and shrugged off his hand as I felt for a carotid pulse. Nothing. I put my ear next to Caspian’s mouth and didn’t feel breath. Desperately trying to recall how to do CPR, I knew even if I screwed up, whatever I could manage was better than nothing. “I’m a doctor,” I lied, then wondered if women doctors had been invented yet.
The men gathered around us murmuring something like “that’s impossible” but I ignored them. I sealed my mouth across Caspian’s and stacked a few breaths to fill his lungs, then turned my attention to his broad chest. Was this how he died? Did I have my answer in this moment of panic? I didn’t want to know it.
Regardless, I found the area of chest I thought would house Caspian’s heart and straightened my arms to begins compressions. “One and two and three and four and breathe,” I said, then pinched his nose and bent to give him another breath. The men around me stood helplessly while I continued compressions. In less than a minute o
f this Caspian coughed and spit up sea water. I turned his head to let the water run out to the deck.
Oh. My. God.
He was alive. Caspian coughed up a lot of water, heaving on the deck as I patted his back. If this wasn’t a dream, what was it?
I’d been standing at the edge of the beach when everything changed. The most likely explanation if there was such a thing, was that I was having a premonition of how Caspian had died. Either that or I’d gone back in time and changed the course of the whole world by interfering. I wasn’t usually a participant in my premonitions. This was completely different.
As I shivered and continued to help Caspian regain consciousness, someone threw a scratchy heavy coat across my shoulders. It smelled like unwashed sailor but was warm and appreciated. Caspian tried to sit up, men rushing in to help him.
“Witch,” someone said, fearfully.
I looked up to see the men on deck staring at me as if I’d brought a dead man back to life, which to them, I probably had. Technically, that’s what CPR is but the lifesaving action wouldn’t be discovered for another century.
“Or love’s true kiss,” a small man muttered behind me.
“I’m not a witch,” I said to them. “I told you. I’m a doctor.” I tried to say this last part with as much authority as I thought necessary, and wondered what century Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, the TV show, took place in.
“Make way for Ten Tooth,” the small man said.
Caspian was dazed and still fighting to cough out the sea water as a man with a grizzled beard and an eye patch, moved in to help him to his feet.
