Darkness Exposed - a Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery

by Terri Reid

  Ian stood up, grabbed another muffin and leaned against the counter. “Aye, you have the right of it, Stanley,” he said. “What are we up to today?”

  “Muffins,” Mary said, picking up a muffin from the basket on the counter. “Jeannine took one look at the muffin Rosie gave me and screamed at me to drop it.”

  Ian paused halfway through another bite of muffin and turned to Jeannine. “There’s something wrong with the muffins?”

  Jeannine chuckled. “No, something happened. A memory, a flashback, I don’t know. But when I saw Mary pick up the muffin I freaked out.”

  “He can see Jeannine too?” Rosie asked.

  “Aye, I can see Jeannine and you’re missing out if you can’t, for she’s lovely as a summer morning,” he said.

  “For a dead person,” Jeannine quipped.

  Ian laughed. “Aye, you have me there. So, now, what do we do with this memory? Do you have any idea why muffins terrify you?”

  She shook her head. “No, I keep hitting a wall every time I try to remember.”

  He nodded. “Well, then, there’s only one thing we can do.”

  “And what’s that?” Mary asked.

  He took another large bite of muffin. “Hypnotize her,” he said. “And see if we can break down the wall.”

  “You can hypnotize a ghost?” Rosie asked.

  Ian shrugged. “Don’t know if it’s ever been done before,” he said. “But we can try. How does that sound to you?”

  Jeannine stared at Ian for a moment. “You’re not going to make me do the chicken dance, are you?”

  Muffin crumbs flew across the kitchen counter as Ian choked on his laughter. Mary came up behind him and patted him on the back, trying to hold back her own laughter.

  “No,” he choked. “Nothing like that. Serious, professional hypnotism.”

  Jeannine smiled at him. “Well, then professor, I’ll place myself in your capable hands.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mike was bored. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t able to follow Mary to Sycamore. Whenever he tried to picture her in his mind, he ended up in her empty house. So he walked through the rooms and watched out the windows. He played the radio and even found himself reading through Ian’s notes on paranormal entities.

  Often the ghost doesn’t realize he’s haunting an establishment. Sometimes a ghost has a connection to a place and the connection has him returning time and time again. Once there, the ghost finds itself bored and wanders aimlessly throughout the house.

  “Damn, I’m haunting Mary’s house,” he said when the realization hit him. “If I don’t get something to do I’m going to drive myself crazy.”

  Moments later, he heard the front door open. “Excellent, a burglar,” he said, moving toward the front of the house. “I’ll take care of him.”

  To his dismay, it wasn’t a criminal. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Police Chief Bradley Alden flipped on the light after letting himself into Mary’s house. He walked to the kitchen and filled a pitcher with water.

  “Really? You’re just watering her plants?” Mike said. “Is that the best use of taxpayer’s money?”

  Because Bradley couldn’t hear Mike, he just went about his business, watering the plants.

  “Well, this is absolutely no fun,” Mike said, and then a grin appeared on his face. “But I could make it more interesting.”

  Mike moved closer to Bradley, and as Bradley tipped the pitcher to pour water into the pot, Mike pushed the pot a few inches. Water splashed on the table top. “Damn, how did I do that?” Bradley asked.

  He put the pitcher down and went to the kitchen for a dish towel to wipe up the mess. Then he picked the pitcher up again and Mike moved the pot again. Bradley stopped mid-pour, saving the table from another soaking. He looked slowly around the room and then spoke. “I’ll tell Mary the water stain on her favorite antique table was your fault.”

  Mike moved the pot back in place.

  “Thank you,” Bradley said, finally watering the plant. “So, I’m guessing you must be Mike. I don’t think we’ve ever been formally introduced. I’m Bradley.”

  The white board on the refrigerator floated across the room. “NICE TO MEET YOU” appeared slowly as an unseen hand moved the black marker back and forth.

  “It would be a hell of a lot easier if I could see and hear you,” Bradley said.

  “FOR ME TOO” the marker printed. Then Mike remembered something else Ian had written. He glided across the room, picked up the notebook and flipped it to the proper page.

  “You want me to read something?” Bradley asked. “You want me to read the notebook?”

  “This isn’t an adventure of Lassie,” Mike grumbled. “Of course, I want you to read the notebook. Why else would I be flipping it open in front of you?”

  Unaware of Mike’s comments, Bradley picked the notebook up and read the page.

  Some researchers believe that subjects must be born with a substantial amount of ESP or have had some kind of near-death experience in order to acquire the ability to see and communicate with spirits of the deceased or ghosts. However, during a recent study of pre-school children who were placed in an atmosphere highly conducive to paranormal activity, ninety percent of those children were able to communicate with ghosts. This leads me to the conclusion that the ability to see ghost lies within our own psyche. As children no one has prejudiced us against the idea of being able to see ghosts and therefore, we open our minds and are willing to see them. As we age, more encumbrances are placed upon our conscious as well as our subconscious, and we close our minds to the possibility of seeing ghosts. My final conclusion is one will be able to see ghosts if one only allows one’s conscious and subconscious to accept their existence as part of reality and are willing to see them.

  He sat down on Mary’s couch and pondered Ian’s words. “Well, it certainly makes sense,” Bradley said. “I can see ghosts.”

  “Yeah, but only if we want you to see us,” Mike said. “There’s not a lot of Mary O’Reilly’s in the world.”

  Bradley thought back to his first encounters with ghosts. Earl was his first experience, a ghost from the Civil War who would visit Mary every night at midnight, seeking her help. Bradley had spent the night at Mary’s because she had been hurt and he didn’t want her to be alone. He woke when the clock struck midnight and he heard someone walking up her basement stairs. Gun drawn, he angled himself so he would see the intruder as soon as the door opened. The door had been bolted shut, but the intruder forced it open, ripping the bolt from its casing in the door. The door swung open and Bradley yelled out, identifying himself as a law enforcement officer. But, there was no one there.

  He watched, open mouthed, as he heard the thumping footsteps make their way up the stairs to the second floor, but there was no one there to make the sounds. Mary woke up long enough to tell him it was just Earl. And to assure him when Earl discovered Mary wasn’t upstairs, he’d just turn around and leave.

  Sure enough, a few moments later, Bradley heard the returning footfalls and once again, saw no one.

  He shook his head and refused to believe what he had just seen. “But, there are no such things as ghosts,” he had insisted.

  Mary just shrugged and said, “Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting.”

  He chuckled at the memory. Boy, did he have a lot to learn.

  Then, just a few days later, he learned that when he was in contact with Mary he was able to not only hear, but see ghosts. The first ghost had been the president of the local bank who had been murdered, but it had been made to look like a suicide. He had been crying in Mary’s basement and, because Bradley had insisted, she called him before she went down and investigated. She told him someone was crying, but he couldn’t hear anything. She had patted his arm in sympathy and he realized he could hear the crying when she touched him.

  If he could hear by a simple touch, surely he could see ghosts if he just concentrated.

  He closed his eyes and to
ld himself that he could see ghosts. Then he opened them…the room was still empty.

  “Mike, are you still here?” he called out.

  “YES - I AM” he wrote on the white board.

  “Okay, it’s not working yet,” Bradley said. “But I’m trying.”

  He closed his eyes again and this time he squeezed them tight. “I believe, I believe, I believe.”

  He opened his eyes and looked past Mike into the room. “Mike?”

  “Well, that worked,” Mike said, rolling his eyes. “It’s obvious you have some kind of mental block. Maybe we need to use psychology to help you with this problem.”

  “WAIT HERE - I HAVE AN IDEA” he wrote on the board.

  A moment later Mike materialized in Mary’s room. “She’s got to have something around here that will work,” he said as he scanned her room.

  Then he saw the vase filled with small colored glass stones. He lifted one of the stones out; it was dark blue and had a darker swirl in the middle of it. “Perfect,” he said. “Looks pretty mystic to me.”

  He started to walk out of the room when he noticed the bathroom door was ajar. The only rule the ghosts who visited Mary had was to not appear to her in the bathroom. But, Mary isn’t here, he reasoned.

  He quickly glided across the room and stopped at the bathroom doorway. Peering inside, he could see her vanity filled with soaps, cremes and other beauty products. Then he saw her shower. It was a beautiful block of glass walls and chrome. It had multiple shower heads and jets placed on the walls.

  “No wonder she doesn’t want anyone in here,” he said. “She doesn’t want to share.”

  He glided into the bathroom and picked up a bar of soap. Entering the shower, he sung a little tune to himself as he turned to the glass wall facing towards the bathroom and drew the soap across the glass a number of times. Then he pulled a towel from a nearby shelf and hung it strategically over the chrome bar in the shower.

  “There we are,” he said with a grin, “A nice welcome home for Mary.”

  A few moments later he was down in the living room, standing in front of Bradley with the white board. “I’M BACK” he wrote.

  “What took you so long?” Bradley asked.

  “HAD TO USE THE BATHROOM” he responded in print. “I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU. IT SHOULD HELP”

  A dark blue stone floated across the room and landed in Bradley’s hand. “What’s this?”

  “Oh, just a piece of glass I found in Mary’s room,” Mike said aloud. “But it’s enough to fool you into believing in the powers you already possess.”

  “A GIFT TO MARY FROM IAN. ANCIENT DIVINATION STONE. HELPS YOU CONTACT SPIRITS” he wrote.

  “Really,” Bradley said, hefting it in his hand. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Whip it across the room and see if anyone screams,” Mike said.

  “JUST RUB IT AND YOU CAN SEE GHOSTS. WORKED FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS” he wrote.

  “Just rub it,” he read aloud. He rubbed the stone, concentrating on whatever power it had to open up the unknown. “This little stone is going to change my life. Just like Mary did.”

  “Yeah, meeting Mary does that to a guy.”

  Shocked, Bradley looked up to see a fairly young man standing in front of him. But, he was translucent.

  “Damn, it worked,” Bradley said in awe. “Are you Mike?”

  Mike nodded. “Yeah, Chief, nice to meet you.”

  Bradley took a good look at Mike. He was a young man who was in prime condition and looked like he could have posed for one of those fireman calendars. “I had hoped you were old and fat,” Bradley said.

  Mike snorted. “Yeah, and I wish I was still alive, so we both loose.”

  Bradley sobered. “Hey, I’m sorry…”

  “No, don’t worry about it,” Mike said. “I’m getting used to it. Besides, I get to pop in on Mary any time I feel like it. Day or night.”

  “Are you trying to start something here?” Bradley asked.

  “Sure, I’ll do anything for a little excitement.”

  Bradley paused for a moment. Having Mike around might be a solution to another problem facing his department. “Can you see other ghosts?” he asked.

  “Sometimes,” Mike replied. “Just depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “Depends if I can see them or not,” Mike said, rolling his eyes. “Listen, I’m fairly new to this whole ghost thing, so I’m not up on all the rules. Sometime I see them and sometime I don’t.”

  Bradley stood up and faced Mike. “Actually, I could use your help. We think we have an arsonist in town,” Bradley said. “There’s been a flurry of burning barns across the county. We have no motive, they all seem like random acts, but yesterday we found a body in the ruins of one of the barns. Want to take a look?”

  “You asking me to investigate an arson scene, talk to a potential victim and help you solve a murder?” he asked.

  Bradley nodded. “Yes, I am. You interested?”

  “Hell, yes I’m interested,” he said. “You can water those plants later. Come on; let’s catch us some bad guys.”

  “Yeah, and on the way, we can talk about this dropping in on Mary thing,” Bradley said, as he walked out the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Okay Jeannine,” Ian said. “Let’s try this one more time.”

  Jeannine nodded. “I’m so sorry, Ian. I just can’t seem to get this right.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I suppose this is harder when you don’t have a body.”

  Jeannine hovered above the couch in a horizontal position and took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

  The curtains had been drawn and the lights had been turned low. Stanley and Rosie sat across the room, keeping an eye on the doors in case they had any surprise visitors. Mary sat in a chair alongside the back of the couch, ready to take notes.

  Ian pulled his chair closer to the couch and leaned forward. “Now Jeannine, I want you to clear your mind,” he said calmly. “Picture yourself on a white fluffy cloud floating above the earth with blue sky all around you. It’s warm on your skin and you feel totally at ease.”

  Jeannine nodded and closed her eyes. She thought about the things Ian had suggested to her. Beautiful blue skies and fluffy white clouds. She inhaled deeply. She was slowly drifting. Her mind was clear. She was ready for Ian’s hypnotic suggestion.

  She breathed in slowly, and picked up a fresh, almost salty fragrance. Was that a scented candle, she wondered. She could hear noises in the distance, it sounded like a crowd of people. Had Stanley turned the television on? Then she heard the distinct roar of an airplane.

  “Airplane?”

  Jeannine opened her eyes and looked around. Crap! She was above Hawaii, floating in one of the clouds near the island of Oahu. She and Bradley had gone there when they were newlyweds. But that was not where she was supposed to be now.

  She closed her eyes and focused back on her house. Back on the living room couch. Back with Ian, Mary, Rosie and Stanley.

  “Aye, well, she’s back now,” she heard Ian say.

  She opened her eyes and looked around. Yes, she was back in her living room.

  “So, where did you go this time?” Mary asked, leaning over the back of the couch.

  “Hawaii,” she replied. “It’s really lovely this time of year.”

  “Well, that’s better than Alaska,” Mary said.

  “I’m grateful for the suggestion of blue skies and warmth. The whole ‘everything around you is white’ was not as enjoyable.”

  She turned to Ian. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I do everything you ask me to do and poof, I end up somewhere else.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “You have no body to anchor you down.”

  “But there has to be a way,” she said. “I need to remember.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Mary said.

  “I’m open to just about anything,” he replied.

  “Let me be
the body for Jeannine. Hypnotize both of us.”

  Rosie shook her head. “Oh, no,” she said. “I’ve seen movies like that, where spirits inhabit someone else’s body. Bad things always happen to them, Mary.”

  Mary smiled at Rosie. “But, Rosie, Jeannine and I are friends,” she said. “It won’t be like that.”

  “Can’t say I’m crazy about the idea either,” Stanley said. “What’s to say once she’s in there, she’ll be able to get out?”

  “I’ve seen it happen a time or two at a seance,” Ian said. “The medium opens herself up and the spirit is able to enter her body. It’s called channeling. But, it can be dangerous because you don’t know what kind of spirit might enter your body.”

  Jeannine looked confused. “What do you mean, kind of spirit,” she asked. “The dead kind, right?”

  “Well, actually, there are good spirits and there are evil spirits,” Ian explained. “Some evil spirits are tortured souls who led the kind of life that have them trapped here on earth. Some, from what I understand, never got the chance to have bodies and just hover around, waiting for a chance to try one on for size.”

  “I never heard that,” Stanley said. “Where would they hang out?”

  “Places where people are apt to give up control of their bodies,” he said. “Like the neighborhood pub where I’ve seen many a lad drink so much alcohol, he has no idea where he is or what he’s about. He’s a perfect victim for that kind of visitor.”