Nun After the Other

by Alice Loweecey

  He came around the counter and pulled down the window shades. “I’d almost rather deal with a high-ranking devotee of Anton LaVey.” Then he turned the hanging sign on the door to “Closed” and sat kitty-corner to her. “I’m at your disposal.”

  Giulia held up her iPad. “I’m ready to take notes.”

  “First rule of engagement: All ghosts are unstable. For their first appearance they may try to unsettle you, like your ghost and her cigarettes.”

  “She’s not my ghost.”

  “Actually she is.”

  Giulia’s bubble of satisfaction in denying ownership burst. “What do you mean?”

  “You issued an invitation to talk. She accepted.” He held up his hand. “Don’t worry. I’m not saying she’s going to follow you home.”

  “I prefer to leave my work at the office when possible.”

  “A good policy. What I’m saying is you’ve both signed a contract. Until the issues are resolved, you’re connected.”

  Giulia put her hands over her mouth and hyperventilated through them like they were a brown paper bag.

  Jasper broke protocol and put his hands over hers, the silicon-covered one on the outside. “It’s not like The Fog. Remember that movie?”

  “Jamie Lee Curtis, Hal Holbrook, 1980.” The overlapping hands muffled her voice.

  “Right. I don’t imagine you’ve murdered and stolen gold and melted it down into a giant cross.”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “You’ve confirmed my opinion of you. Do my hands smell like liverwurst? I had a late lunch.”

  Giulia’s rapid breathing hitched in a laugh. “I smell the faintest whiff of metal.”

  “Much better than metal plus pig livers mixed with allspice.” He removed his hands. “Better?”

  She sat up. “Embarrassing over-reaction finished.”

  He had the gift of a smile that diffused warmth. “Rowan played down her reaction when she told you the story of seeing her first mother-in-law’s ghost. She’s told me the uncensored version. When it appeared at the foot of the bed on their wedding night she threw him off her so hard he broke his tailbone on the floor.”

  Giulia snorted.

  “It gets better. The ghost told Rowan her hair was stringy and her belly was flabby and to go take care of her precious boy or she’d be sorry. Rowan told her where to stuff it, all while the precious boy was whining in pain on the floor.”

  “Not an auspicious start to a marriage. The worst thing I did was forget my shoes and walk down the aisle in my stockings.”

  “And no ghosts?”

  “Definitely no ghosts.” Giulia retrieved her iPad. “All right. I’ve entered into a temporary contract with a one-hundred-year-old ghost. She indulges in an excess of snark and she may only be shamming harmless. In reality, she could snap and become the Incredible Chain Smoking Hulk at any moment.”

  “Concise and correct. There’s always a chance a ghost will do a one-eighty and turn into a sugary version of Shirley Temple singing ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop,’ but not in our experience.”

  “You wouldn’t have a pamphlet with a step by step list, by any chance?”

  “If only.” He spread his hands. “But despair not. While all ghosts are different, the rules of the game still apply. It’s a matter of finding the effective rules for each ghost.”

  “I’ll have to hurry the process of elimination. Events are speeding up.”

  “I’ll be as succinct as possible. I know we already discussed rule number one, but I think the order should be rearranged. Here’s new rule number one: Ghosts lie.”

  “If I can’t trust the dead, who can I trust?” Giulia typed while she spoke.

  “No one but yourself. If Rowan were to die and haunt this shop, I wouldn’t interact with her as though she were my talented and funny aunt. I’d use every atom of skill I possess to probe her words and actions for the hidden sorrow or anger tying her here.”

  Always a fast typist, Giulia finished recording his words almost as soon as he spoke. “Number two?”

  “Words have power.”

  “The contract you said I bound myself to.” She looked up from her tablet. “The Scooby-Doo show should’ve had a series of episodes covering these when I was growing up. Childhood is supposed to give us a solid foundation for life’s requirements.”

  “We carry on as best we can. Ghosts have infinite time on their hands in which to consider the meanings of words. They like to mess with the living. Sometimes they merely trick us into harmless promises, like making sure the TV is always tuned to NASCAR.”

  “Or irritating everyone in the vicinity with cigarette smoke.”

  Jasper made a hacking sound. “I quit cold turkey two years, one month, and seventeen days ago. Even a whiff of cigs makes me want to hurl.”

  “She tried to deflect my questions by teasing me with how she’s able to smoke. I doubt her smoke contains actual nicotine, but it sure smells authentic.”

  “She wouldn’t like dealing with me. But you’re a different story. You have an excess of compassion. Assume she’s already scheming how to play on your sympathy and latch tighter to you. Protect yourself.”

  With a stiffened chin: “I will become Giulia the hard-hearted.”

  “Rule number three, the one I mentioned earlier: All ghosts are unstable. She’s already tried to unsettle you. This may limit itself to harmless pranks, or it may turn dark in a heartbeat. Never let your guard down.” He paused. “May I suggest typing that in large, bold, capital letters? Preferably in red.”

  Giulia opened the formatting tab and complied.

  “You’ll be pleased to know rule number four is also the last: Believe.”

  She put a dozen ways of saying “Are you kidding?” into her expression.

  He laughed. “I once heard you were a naïve pushover.”

  “I once was.”

  “It’s a good thing you aren’t any longer. Lest you dismiss the way Rowan keeps insisting you have spiritual power and your little guy adds to it, I assure you she’s right. We all have a core of power. Yours is much easier to access than most people’s because of your background.”

  “Serious question: How?”

  “You’re going to complain again about the lack of an instruction manual, because the answer is ‘it’s different for everyone.’”

  “Jasper…”

  “Honest. Rowan accesses her power core by envisioning the Fool card. It’s hers because she embraces its deepest meanings: Risk, spontaneity, and unlimited potential. I envision water, because of its strength and serenity.” He waited for her to stop typing. “It helps if I don’t have to pee at the time.”

  She chuckled. “These sessions always seem to involve homework.”

  “Homework helps cement new ideas in the mind.”

  “Spoken like a true teacher. To implement rule number four I need to discover the trigger for my spiritual strength.” She looked up from the keyboard. “It would be a big help if my trigger is a crucifix or something equally familiar and Catholic.”

  “It may be. When you discover it you’ll have no doubts. Use it to resist the ghost. Your strength will reveal holes in its anger or games or pity party.”

  “I need a month to process everything that’s happened in the past two days.” She saved and closed. “You are so kind to put in overtime for me. I’ll get out of your hair now and let you get some supper.” Her stomach growled. “I’ll do the same.”

  He unlocked the door, but stopped before opening it. “I almost forgot the most important rule.”

  She reached for her tablet. “What?”

  “You have to make the ghost sneeze.”

  “Sneeze? How?”

  “With a ghost pepper.”

  Jasper released the door handle and bent double with his hands on his k
nees. His laugh was hoarse and deep and contagious. Giulia tried to keep a disapproving face on, but couldn’t maintain it. She opened the door and let herself out, laughing.

  Still under the shop’s purple awning, her phone rang.

  “For once I’d be glad if it was a telemarketer.” She pressed the screen. “Hello?”

  “Giulia, you have to come here right now!”

  She sighed. “Bart, what’s wrong?”

  “We found Eugenie in the cellar next to a broken gas pipe.”

  “Is she okay? Wait. How did Eugenie get into the cellar?”

  “We don’t know, we don’t know. The cellar was full of gas. Emergency people are swarming the house. Please come. Please. Right now.”

  Sixty-Five

  Giulia parked across the street from the convent because a fire truck, an ambulance, a police car, and a Pennsylvania Gas & Electric truck crowded the other curb. Onlookers had once again materialized despite the lack of actual neighbors.

  Firefighters in full gear including oxygen masks clomped in and out of the front door. A middle-aged man stood next to the driver’s seat of the PG&E truck. His beer belly strained the bottom buttons of his uniform as he rested one foot on the running board and spoke into an oversized phone. One police officer kept an eye on the rubberneckers.

  Giulia walked two houses past the convent and slipped into the narrow space between them. All the patches of backyard grass were empty. She crossed them and dialed Bart.

  “Let me in please. I’m on the back stoop.”

  Bart cracked open the kitchen door and pulled Giulia inside. Steve the Chihuahua trotted into the kitchen, saw Giulia, and huffed his way onto his braided rug.

  “Steve, I apologize for not being a new audience.”

  “Forget him. Come into the living room. We need someone to explain what’s happening to us.” Bart tugged Giulia toward the front of the house. All the windows were wide open.

  “Bart, I don’t smell gas now, but why aren’t you all on the front lawn until you get the all clear?”

  “They started to herd us outside until Dorothy turned into the Wicked Witch of the West.” She choked back a giggle. “The firefighters hauled their testing gizmos into Agatha and Helen’s rooms. She’d already opened every window on the second floor. They said parts per million was negligible, ‘but as a precaution’… and that’s when Dorothy redefined the wrath of God.”

  Giulia swallowed her own giggle. “But down here?”

  A voice from the cellar shouted, “Hot zone decrease.”

  Another voice answered, “Outside clear.”

  A firefighter in the front door blocked the early evening light. Giulia and Bart scooted into the living room doorway to give him room. He held a black and yellow instrument in one hand. Small lights in a glass globe blinked green as he aimed it into each room before heading down to the cellar.

  Bart said over the footfalls and distant shouting, “Eugenie looked so bad they said they couldn’t afford to waste time transporting her anywhere. We opened every window and door and are waiting for permission to set up fans.”

  Eugenie lay on a blanket on the flattened green rug in the front room, a floral throw pillow under her head. A tube attached to a portable oxygen cylinder connected to a clear mask covering her nose and mouth. A blood pressure cuff circled one bicep. The EMT on her right side monitored the oxygen flow. The EMT on her left checked her heart. Dorothy paced the narrow end of the room like a power walker. Kathryn, Olive, and Diane hovered in the corner. Bart and Giulia joined them.

  “Giulia will fix everything,” Bart said.

  “Bart, please.”

  “You will. Kathryn, tell her what happened.”

  The EMTs read numbers out loud to each other.

  “I came home late from school and Steve was barking his head off at the cellar door. He does that sometimes. I told him to hush and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.” She pulled at her short graying hair. “I never thought anything about it. I turned on the burner—”

  “You lit the gas?” Giulia said.

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” Her hands clenched harder.

  Diane reached up and disengaged them. “You’re beating yourself up over nothing. Why would any of us think anything other than Steve was imagining rats in the cellar again?”

  “But we did find rats,” Olive said.

  “Not now, please.” Kathryn’s voice thinned.

  Giulia intervened. “What happened next?”

  “I poured Steve’s kibble into his bowl because he always shuts up for food. When he kept barking, I turned off the burner and opened the cellar door.” She waved a hand in front of her nose. “I still smell it. The stairwell reeked of natural gas. Steve jumped down two steps, but I grabbed him and threw him into the hall. Then I put my arm over my nose and ran downstairs and found Eugenie on the floor next to the gas meter. The oldest pipe had broken away from the wall and gas was spouting from it with such force it whistled.”

  “Penelec should’ve replaced those pipes years ago,” Diane murmured. “Rust is the only thing keeping them together.”

  “How did the pipe come loose from the wall?” Giulia kept one eye on the group on the rug. The left-hand EMT raised Eugenie’s eyelids and shone a light into them.

  “I wish I knew,” Kathryn said.

  Olive said, “I wish I knew how wheelchair-bound Eugenie got down to the cellar.” She called over to Dorothy, “How long has she been able to walk?”

  The nurse joined them. “I have no idea. When she was assigned to me her records said her advanced diabetes resulted in neuropathy which caused her to slip on an icy sidewalk. She’s never moved her legs on her own as long as I’ve taken care of her.”

  “What a sneaky piece of work she is.” Olive’s voice conveyed admiration rather than annoyance.

  On the floor, the patient gasped and began to cough. The EMTs raised her to a sitting position and eased the oxygen mask away. Not soon enough, because on the next cough Eugenie projectile vomited into the mask and onto her white blouse, one EMT’s hands, the blanket, and the rug.

  Diane ran into the kitchen and brought back a roll of paper towels and three wet cloths. Olive walked upstairs and returned with a clean shirt. Kathryn made her own trip into the kitchen and returned with a cup of water. Eugenie stopped puking and groaned.

  The non-splattered EMT took a wet cloth from Diane’s outstretched hand. “Thanks.” He wiped Eugenie’s face and shirt. The other EMT wiped vomit out of the oxygen mask with a new wet cloth, then flipped the cloth over to clean herself.

  A firefighter passed the doorway. The female EMT called after him. “Joe, can you bring us a new oxygen pack?”

  He gave her a thumbs-up and kept walking. She unbuttoned Eugenie’s filthy blouse and worked it off her arms. Olive passed her the clean shirt. The replacement oxygen mask and tubing arrived. Kathryn handed the water to the EMT, who held the cup to Eugenie’s lips and helped her sip.

  A breeze blew through the open windows, wafting the stench toward the nuns. Bart stepped into the hall to gag. Steve the Chihuahua ambled into the room and made a beeline for the puddles of vomit. Diane scooped him up and held him despite loud protests.

  The EMTs checked Eugenie’s lungs, blood pressure, and eyes.

  “I feel terrible.” The wheelchair-bound nun’s voice quavered.

  A white-haired, wrinkled man in a Pennsylvania Gas & Electric uniform entered the room. He looked at the group by the wall with a questioning expression.

  The Superior stepped forward. “I’m Sister Kathryn.”

  “Are you in charge? We replaced the old pipes and attached the new ones to the wall. You should get your cellar checked out. The drywall’s starting to rot.” He handed Kathryn a work order. “About the leak. The hot zones have dissipated, so you’re okay to use cell phones
and other electronics again. Keep the windows open all night.”

  “Open windows on the ground floor aren’t a wise decision in this neighborhood.”

  He looked around. “Oh. Yeah. Well, keep these ones open as long as you can, and don’t close the second- and third-floor ones for twenty-four hours. If you’ll follow me downstairs I’ll show you the new fixtures.”

  Kathryn beckoned to Bart and the three headed to the cellar.

  The EMTs poked and measured and inspected a passive Eugenie. Giulia approached the group on the floor. “Sister Eugenie, what happened in the cellar?”

  Her face sagged like a bloodhound’s into jowls and plump wrinkles. “I’ll only talk to my confessor.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The old nun shivered at Giulia’s Sister Mary Regina Coelis voice. But instead of explaining, she started to cry and repeated, “I need confession. I need confession.”

  Before Giulia had a chance to try another tactic, Eugenie fainted into the arms of both EMTs.

  A few years ago, Giulia would’ve tripped all over herself to help. But despite the gas and vomiting Giulia took into account Eugenie’s love of manipulation. She said to the EMT closest to her, “Is she faking it?”

  The EMT might have spent a few years in Catholic school by the shock on her face. Her partner perhaps had not, since he checked the nun’s pulse and eye reactions.

  “She’s unconscious.”

  Dorothy said, “I don’t hear Agatha.”

  Giulia listened. The invalid nun’s moans and groans had run as an undercurrent through the hubbub created as the fire and power crews responded to the emergency. Now she heard only cleanup noises and muted conversations from the rubberneckers on the sidewalk.

  Dorothy and Giulia ran upstairs. Because all the doors and windows were open, they saw Sister Agatha’s head turn toward the stairs as they reached the landing. Her eyes were open and aware. Her mouth was closed.

  They came straight into her room. Dorothy said, “Sister Agatha, can we help you? Do you need anything?”

  “Bring Clarence here.”

  “Clarence?”

  A trembling finger pointed at Giulia. “You. Bring Clarence.”