by Terri Reid
“Spent a lot of time there?” Otis asked, raising one eyebrow in her direction.
“Probably more time than I should have,” she confessed. “I hated turning down a dare.”
“Oh, you were one of those kinds of students.”
“Yes, I was,” she said. “And I probably deserved to be in there more than I was.”
“How’d you stay out?” Otis asked.
“I had a bunch of big brothers looking out for me.”
“Yeah, big brothers have a way of doing that for their little sisters, don’t they?” Otis asked, as he drew her from the hallway into the office.
Looking around, Mary saw a slightly older version of the eight year-old Jose sitting on a wooden bench outside the principal’s inner office. A nun dressed in a black habit sat at a desk across from him, her face in a perpetual scowl.
The door opened, a large priest stepped out and looked down at the boy. “Mr. Martinez?” he asked.
Jose looked up and nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“It seems we meet far too often than we should,” the man said sternly.
“Yes, sir,” Jose replied, dropping his head. “I am sorry, sir.”
“Why don’t you come into my office and we can discuss it.”
The boy obediently followed the priest into the office and Mary and Otis followed too.
The priest sat behind the large oak desk and the boy sat in the small chair on the other side. “So, tell me, Mr. Martinez,” he said. “Why aren’t you doing your homework?”
“I’m sorry, Father Tilford, I have been trying,” he said.
“We have offered after-school tutoring,” Father Tilford said. “And you have turned us down.”
“I have to take care of Maria,” he said simply.
“You should allow someone else the responsibility of taking care of your sister. You are only twelve years old, scarcely old enough to take on the responsibility of raising a sibling.”
“I promised Maria I would take care of her,” he said. “I promised I would watch out for her.”
“If your grades keep up this way, you will lose your scholarship and you will have to go to the public school,” he insisted. “Do you understand what that means?”
Mary understood. Often the parochial schools were the only things that stood between a child actually getting an education and making a clean break from one of the downtrodden neighborhoods or being pulled into gang activity.
“I understand,” Jose said somberly. “I will try harder.”
The school bell rang and Jose looked up, startled.
“You may go,” the priest said with a sigh.
Jose jumped up, glanced at the clock, ran from the office and down the hall towards the door.
“Can you run?” Otis asked Mary.
“Yes, I can,” Mary said, jogging alongside the ghost as they followed Jose outside.
He didn’t pause for the light or the crossing guard, but zig-zagged through the beeping cars until he made it to the other side of the street. Then he sprinted down the street towards the schoolyard of the public elementary school two blocks away. Dodging parents and students as they walked away from the school, their hands filled with books and backpacks.
Finally, he ran to the back of the school. Maria, now eight years old, was huddled in a corner of the building, next to the entrance, sobbing. “Maria, what’s wrong?” Jose asked.
She dropped her books and ran to him. “I thought you weren’t coming,” she cried. “I thought someone had killed you.”
He shook his head. “No, Maria, I told you I would look after you.”
“But you were late,” she accused.
“The Father had to speak with me,” he said. “That’s all. I came as quickly as I could. Besides, you are supposed to wait for me inside if I am late.”
“My teacher had a meeting and told me I had to wait here,” she said, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I thought the gangs would get me.”
He bent over, picked up her books and put his arm around her shoulders. “Come on, pequeño, you will be fine.”
Mary and Otis followed them as they walked for several blocks in the cold wind before stopping in front of a small Latino Grocer. Jose opened the door and held it for his sister. Entering after them, Mary looked over the grimy store. There was a smell of rotten vegetables and spoiled meat in the air. The aisles were a combination of Hispanic canned goods and generic American food. The packaging was beat up and dented, like it had been pulled from a discard bin at another store and brought here.
“Hey, you are late,” a rotund greasy man with a limp moustache said as he rounded the counter. “You’re docked an hour’s pay.”
Mary looked up at the clock over the counter. Jose had only been five minutes late, why didn’t he argue?
“Yes, sir,” Jose said. “What would you like me to do?”
“I need the floors mopped, the shelves restacked and back room cleaned,” he snarled. “You’ll be watching the register tonight too, so don’t fall asleep again.”
“Yes, sir,” Jose said.
“I saw Maria with a juice box yesterday,” the man said, moving closer to Jose. “Did you make sure you deducted that from your pay?”
“Yes, sir, I did,” Jose replied.
“Good, because if I find out you’ve cheated me, I’m calling DCFS and they will put your sister in foster care sooner than you can spit,” he said. “And you know what those men in foster care like to do to pretty little girls.”
“I won’t cheat you,” Jose said firmly. “I promise. You won’t have to call anyone.”
“That man is using that boy like his own personal slave,” Mary protested. “Jose is sacrificing everything for his sister.”
Otis looked down at her. “That’s what big brothers do for their little sisters.”
The room around them began to blur and a moment later Mary found herself back in her bedroom.
Chapter Eight
Mary sat on the edge of her bed and waited, she was not disappointed. A few minutes later Joseph appeared. He smiled when he saw her. “So, you knew I was coming,” he said.
“I’m just hoping we don’t end up in a cemetery somewhere with my name on a headstone,” she said lightly.
His smile faded. “Actually, we are going to a cemetery, but your name won’t be on the headstone.”
He reached out, touched her hand and in an instant they were standing in a cemetery next to the Catholic Church and school Jose had attended when he was younger. Mary walked slowly through the snow to a freshly covered plot. “How did he get here?” she wondered aloud. “How did he get from caring little boy to gang member?”
“Does it matter?” Joseph asked. “Wouldn’t those just be extenuating circumstances, which really don’t count in a court of law?”
Mary closed her eyes in shame and felt the harshness of her own words. “Yes, it does matter,” she whispered and then she opened her eyes and turned to him. “Are you going to show me? Are you going to let me see what happened and why he made the choices he made?”
“You want me to tie this all up in a nice little bow for you,” Joseph replied. “You want me to prove to you that shooting you wasn’t his fault. That he didn’t have a choice. That deep down inside he was a good guy.”
“Yes,” Mary said, nodding excitedly. “Yes, that’s exactly what I want.”
Joseph shook his head slowly, the look on his face both patient and sad. “No, Mary, I’m not going to do that,” he replied. “Because life is never wrapped up in a nice tidy bow and if you choose to accept your calling, you will never know everything.”
“But if I knew for sure…” she began.
“Then you could judge him fairly,” Joseph finished.
“Yes,” Mary said.
“But don’t you remember, you weren’t supposed to judge him at all,” Joseph reminded her.
Mary stepped back as if she’d been struck. “Then why did you show me all this?” she d
emanded. “Why?”
Joseph stepped forward and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Because, we wanted to give you just a glimpse of what God sees in his children,” he replied tenderly.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough or wise enough.”
“As long as you’re willing,” Joseph said, “that’s all God requires. Besides, you’ve always got your three wise guides to call on for help.”
Chapter Nine
Mary stood in front of the Catholic Church as the wind whipped flakes of snow around her in the still, dark night. The school Jose had attended was boarded up and had not held classes for a number of years. Gang logos scarred the doors and outer walls of the buildings. The empty church next door was surprisingly unscarred, although the plywood that covered its windows and doors had been torn down in places. Stained glass windows had been stolen and, Mary was sure, there wouldn’t be much left on the inside.
Following directions, she walked to the backside of the building and pulled down on the ancient metal fire escape. The rusted joints creaked and, at first, resisted, but eventually Mary could pull the ladder down low enough to climb up on it. She bypassed the second floor and carefully climbed up the slippery rungs to the steepled third floor. As promised, the window was intact, but swung open on well-oiled hinges. She pushed the window open and slid inside.
Shining her flashlight around slowly, she realized she was standing in the humble residential quarters for many of the priests who had served the parish. Walking down the narrow hall, she passed by tiny rooms that only held a cot-like bed, a built in desk and a narrow dresser. Some of the rooms still held personal mementos of their former residents like a plastic crucifix hung on a wall, a strand of rosary beads and a picture frame of a family member. The floors were covered remnants of shag carpeting, molding and damp.
Mary moved past the cubicles to the large oak door at the end of the hall. This door was more ornate than any of the plain wooden doors she had just passed. It was arched on the top and held a delicate stain glass rendition of Jesus kneeling in Gethsemane. The priests’ private chapel.
Reaching down, Mary took hold of the doorknob, twisted and pushed. The door gave way and opened to a small sanctuary that still smelled of wax and incense. Her flashlight guided her past the red velvet covered pews and up to the marble transept and oak altar. She climbed up the stairs and around the altar to the vestry in the far corner.
“Are you sure you can do this?” the voice behind her asked. “I don’t want her to get hurt.”
Rolling her eyes, Mary looked over her shoulder and held her finger up to her lips.
“They can’t hear me,” Jose said. “I’m dead, remember.”
Placing her hand on the door, she slowly turned the knob and, once she heard the click, knocked it open. “Police,” she yelled, pulling out her gun. “Freeze.”
The dozen or so young gang members started to scatter, trying to reach their weapons and fight back. But Mary shot up into the air. “I said freeze,” she repeated.
This time, they did as she requested. “I’ve got a warrant for the arrest of Maria Martinez, which one of you is Maria?”
At first there was no response.
“Fine, I’ll bring you all in,” she said.
“That one, over there, she’s Maria,” a young man said.
“Philippe, what are you doing?” Maria asked, shocked.
“Hey, I ain’t going down for you,” he said. “You ain’t nothing but a bitch.”
“But, you said…you said you loved me,” she cried.
“Yeah, just like your brother said he’d look out for you,” Philippe said, spitting on the floor. “And look how that turned out.”
Maria stood, her hands clenched and rushed at Philippe. “Don’t you talk about Jose,” she said.
Mary pulled Maria away before she reached the boy and guided her out of the room. “You have to come with me,” she said.
Once she had pulled the door closed, she extracted an iron bar from her pack and slid it between the knob and the doorframe, effectively keeping anyone from escaping the room.
Pulling her radio out of her back pocket, she clicked it on. “Hey, this is O’Reilly. Yeah, I got the room secured. You can come up now.”
Pulling Maria out of the chapel, she half-ran with her through the narrow hall and, when she heard the footsteps approaching on the stairs, pulled her into one of the smaller rooms.
“What the…” Maria yelled, before Mary clapped her hand over the girl’s mouth.
“You have to sit still and be very quiet for a few minutes,” she said. “And then I’ll explain everything.”
“Tell her,” Jose demanded. “Tell her I sent you or she will never be quiet.”
The girl fought beneath Mary’s hand. “Jose sent me,” Mary finally whispered into Maria’s ear and the girl stared at Mary in disbelief.
“Tell her I said be quiet, pequeño,” he said.
“He said to tell you to be quiet, pequeño,” she repeated.
The girl’s eyes went wide and she leaned back against the wall, her breath shallow and frightened. Suddenly, on the other side of the door, they could hear the sounds of an army of boots rushing down the hall. Then there was a crash of wood splintering, some yelling and finally the exchange of gunfire.
The light shining through the cubicle’s small window from a streetlight illuminated Maria’s pale face as she comprehended what was going on in the room she had just occupied. Mary met her eyes and motioned to her once again to remain silent.
Finally, the sounds of sirens echoed in the street below them and they waited as paramedics loaded victims into ambulances and police officers filled paddy wagons with still walking members of the gang. After the last vehicle drove away, Mary turned to Maria.
“Who are you?” Maria asked before Mary could speak.
“Tell her,” Jose insisted.
Mary nodded. “My name is Mary O’Reilly and I’m the police officer your brother shot.”
Maria scooted further against the wall. “You here to hurt me?” she asked. “To get back for what my brother did?”
Shaking her head, Mary stepped away from Maria. “No, I’m here to help you,” she said. “Jose asked me to help you.”
“How?”
“I have this new…I don’t know…ability,” Mary said. “I can talk to ghosts. Jose came to me two nights ago and asked me to help get you away from the gang.”
“Did you set up the drug bust?”
“Yes, with Jose’s help,” Mary admitted. “His only condition was that I get you out of there first.”
“Yeah, now what?” she asked. “They are going to think I snitched because you pulled me out of there.”
“Tell her about our aunt,” he insisted.
“Jose discovered you have an aunt,” Mary said. “She is your mother’s older sister.”
“But my mother didn’t have any family,” Maria said. “Jose is all I had.”
Mary shook her head. “No, he wasn’t. Your aunt didn’t know about you. She didn’t know what happened to her sister. I called her. She is on her way from Indiana. She is coming to get you.”
“But, I don’t want to leave Chicago,” she insisted. “I don’t want to leave the gang.”
“Maria, the gang is what killed Jose,” Mary said. “He does not want the same thing to happen to you.”
“If it was good enough for Jose, it is good enough for me,” she insisted.
Jose glided up next to her and wrapped his arms around her, as he did when she was three. “No, pequeño, it is not good enough for you,” he said. “Madre would not want you to live this kind of life.”
“Jose is here, with us,” Mary said.
Maria turned to her, her face wet with tears. “Si. I know he is,” she said, her voice trembling. “I can feel him.”
“He’s says this life is not good enough for you. He says your mother would not want you to live lik
e this.”
“But I don’t want to leave him,” she said.
“Maria, you will never leave me. I promised that I will watch over you forever and I will.”
“He said that you will not leave him,” Mary repeated. “He will be with you forever.”
“Forever?” Maria asked.
Mary nodded, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I have it on good authority that the bonds of love are stronger than death,” she said.
Maria looked around the room. “Jose, I love you,” she said softly. “I will go to our aunt.”
“And I love you too, Maria,” he replied.
Then he turned to Mary, his eyes widening with wonder. “I see a light,” he said.
Mary nodded. “Maria is safe,” she said. “You can move on now.”
The church bells from a distance chapel began to chime. Jose smiled at Mary. “Thank you for helping me. And Feliz Navidad. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Jose,” Mary said. “Merry Christmas.”
The End
About the author:
Terri Reid lives near Freeport, the home of the Mary O’Reilly Mystery Series, and loves a good ghost story. She lives in a hundred-year-old farmhouse complete with its own ghost. She loves hearing from her readers at [email protected].
Books by Terri Reid:
Loose Ends – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book One)
Good Tidings – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Two)
Never Forgotten – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Three)
Final Call – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Four)
Darkness Exposed – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Five)
Natural Reaction – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Six)
Secret Hollows – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Seven)
Broken Promises – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Eight)
Twisted Paths – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Nine)
Veiled Passages – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Ten)
Bumpy Roads – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Eleven)
