No time like the present, whatever the big secret, Kat needed to know. She had just flicked on the flashlight when she heard the door close downstairs and her mother’s voice. “Kathleen, are you here?”
“Upstairs, Mom. I’m in the little bedroom closet.”
Perfect timing. Suspiciously perfect, actually.
“I was just about to start sorting through some things in here.” She announced as her mother entered the room. “Want to help?”
If there was anything to hide, Anne Canton, managed it masterfully. Her face remained open and cheerful as she offered her daughter a hug. “I’d forgotten there were still things stored up here. Your grandmother was a bit of a pack rat.”
Kat had not intended to empty the closet but could not pass up the opportunity to spend time with her mother. Sharing this task gave her a deep sense of connectedness, one that had been lacking for a long time.
By the time Anne happened upon the box, Kat had forgotten it was the reason they were digging around in the past to begin with. “Look at this,” Anne carried the box into the bedroom, “It’s locked. I wonder if there’s a key somewhere.” She angled the box to look at it curiously then passed it to Kat who reached for it.
“There is, follow me.” Kat carried the box down to the kitchen where she set it gently on the table before stretching to take down the teapot with the sugar and creamer attached. “I’m pretty sure this will fit.” Her quick fingers retrieved the little key from among the rubber bands and twist ties. She passed it over to let her mother test it in the lock.
Whatever she had been expecting to find, handbills with photos of a beautiful young woman wearing period ballet dancer garb had not been on the list. “Is that grandmother?”
Anne took a closer look. “It is.” A quick intake of breath. “She looks so young, so happy.”
“Did you know she’d been a dancer?” Kat continued to leaf through the box. There was a newspaper article talking about a girl named Nora, a local ballerina being accepted into one of the most prestigious corps in the country. There were cards and letters of congratulation, dried rose petals presumably from an opening night bouquet. Then a second article with the story detailing how a promising young dancer, predicted to become prima, had walked away from the stage to disappear into obscurity.
Kat felt a chill right before she heard her mother speak, “You could have told me, you know.” She whirled to see Anne wagging a finger at the spirit of her grandmother. “You,” Kat pointed her own, “You can see spirit, and you never said a word.”
“I’m afraid it’s my fault. I knew I’d passed my gift on to your mother when she started talking to her Uncle John almost as soon as she learned to speak but as she grew older, the ability seemed to have faded away.”
“It didn’t fade, exactly.” Anne confessed something she had never even told her own mother, “a spirit or an angel came to me and said I could choose to see or not and I chose not.” She turned to her mother, “I’d forgotten it ever happened until you decided to become Madame Zephyr.”
“When your father passed, I needed to make a living and since it was my only marketable skill…”
Anne turned to Kat, “There was no sign that you had the sight so we assumed it had skipped a generation until it hit you all at once, then we lost your grandmother before she could help you learn to control it.”
“You still could have told me and how is it you’re seeing her now?”
It was her grandmother who answered, “Special dispensation from an angel named…”
“Galmadriel,” Kat finished for her. “Is she around? I’d like to know why no one ever offered me that choice.” Bitterness twisted her emotions into a greasy knot of anger.
“Nor was I,” Nora offered in a mild rebuke. “Though I believe Anne paid a price for her decision, did you not?” She turned to her daughter.
“Do you think it was easy to watch you trying to deal with what happened after knowing I had turned my back on the one thing that would have helped you the most? If I had retained my gift, I could have helped you understand yours.” Tears filled Anne’s eyes. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Kat couldn’t stand to see her mother cry. “Of course. Don’t cry mommy, please.” She hugged Anne tightly while Nora watched.
“Grandmother, why did you walk away from dancing? Did your gift develop late in life as well?”
“No, but something else was developing. You see, I’d met this handsome young man who called me his Zephyr because he thought I floated across the stage on the back of a western wind. He was quite a poet, your grandfather. Keep digging in that box and you’ll find out for yourself.”
“He followed me across the country from performance to performance. When the company was slated to go to Europe, he swore he would follow me there but by then Anne was more than just a twinkle in his eye so we settled down here in Oakville and started a life together.”
“I’ve never heard that story before. Didn’t you miss the ballet?”
“Annie, it has always been your nature to take on the hurts of the world, I was afraid you might feel responsible for my choices. I loved to dance but I loved your father and the family he gave me so much more.”
“Now, back to the business at hand. My time runs short. Kathleen, you perceive your time of darkness as a sign of weakness because some twit of a doctor with no experience in the matter called it so. This is an untruth and an unkind one at that.”
Kat raised both eyebrows in surprise.
“Tell me this, how clearly do you see and hear me right now?”
“As clearly as I see and hear any living person. Why? Is that not normal?”
Nora smiled, “All I ever saw were misty, indistinct flashes of figures. But then I was mostly only clairsentient. I received signs, symbols, feelings. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I was very good at interpreting those messages, but I never heard spirit speak directly to me. Your blindness forced you to develop clairaudience as a second ability so you went from seeing distinct presences to hearing them clearly as well. It’s quite remarkable.”
“You’re telling me my blindness was not a form of psychosis? A subconscious response to fear?” An unbelievable weight lifted from Kat. It had been a constant worry to her that any fright might cause a relapse or that she might pass some type of genetic response to fear along to her own children should she choose to have any.
“Absolutely not. Fear may have played a part in lengthening the experience, but not in causing it.”
Kat felt anger creeping back, “And you couldn’t have shown up here before now to let me know? Maybe speed up the process, make it a little easier on me?”
“Yes, mother, why now?” Anne demanded.
“Special dispensation. Galmadriel is busy elsewhere and asked Estelle to handle this but I begged to be the one to come and explain, to have the chance to spend just a little more time with my girls. Oh, Annie, I’m so proud of you. Of both of you. It takes a strong woman to go against every instinct and force your child to stand on her own when all you want to do is protect. Look what you did for Kat and I know exactly what it cost you. The tears you’ve cried in private were never tears cried alone, I was always beside you.”
“Thank you.” Annie whispered, her voice rough with emotion.
“And Kathleen, trees grow the strongest roots when they are clinging to rocky soil. I hope you won’t allow bitterness to taint your experience because then it will have all been for nothing. There are many paths open to you don’t let anger blind you from seeing them.”
With a final smile and a longing look, Nora laid one hand on her heart, reached the other toward the two women standing before her, and faded away.
_,.-'~'-.,_
Heavy silence filled the room for a long time after Nora was gone. Kat opened her mouth several times to speak but words wouldn’t come. Still staring at the point where her mother had been standing, Anne finally mustered up the courage to ask, “Do you hate me?”
“Oh, Mom, no. How could I?”
“I should have told you.”
“What difference would it have made? It changed nothing probably would have resented you for making the choice I would have made given the chance. At the time.” When she made the qualification, Kat knew it was the truth.
“And now?”
“It wasn’t “hysterical blindness,” she spat the words as though bitter in her mouth, “that term has been hanging over my head like a wrecking ball because it made me feel like a victim who was too fragile to handle life. Yet, look around. I’ve done all right for myself and I’ve helped a lot of people in the process.”
Kat stood taller, “I think I’m okay with that.
Chapter 11
Only two blocks from the waterfront, Kat’s street was one of the shortest in Oakville. It was also one of the most crowded. None of the properties qualified as historic but as neighborhoods went, it was the oldest in the town’s centralized area. A row of narrow houses painted in Easter egg colors with gingerbread trim lined both sides of a relatively short street.
The third house on the left, painted a cheerful yellow with its bright blue door, white trim, and tiny picket fence fit right in with the rest. Except for the words Madame Zephyr painted on a small sign, there was nothing about the house that screamed a psychic lives here, and even then, the sign barely whispered.
Most of Kat’s business came from word of mouth advertising and the rest she inherited from her grandmother along with the house.
As he steered the little hybrid into her short drive, Zack thought he saw movement through the curtains. In a low voice he said, “I thought you lived here alone.”
“I do. Why?” Kat frowned.
“Then you have an unexpected guest. Wait here. I’ll go check it out.”
But Kat had already recognized the figure inside from the shadow it cast behind the white eyelet window covering. Before she could catch up to him, he was already halfway to the door and there was no way to warn her uninvited guests.
On a half run, she caught up and grabbed his arm. “No, it’s fine. I know who it is. Nothing to worry about.” But he’d seen the surprise in her eyes and was not fooled.
“Then you can introduce me because I’m not letting you go in there alone.”
No amount of argument changed his mind so with a sigh of resignation, she unlocked the door and stepped inside to key in the alarm code.
Zack could already hear voices and one of them was male. Jealousy, like a bolt of lightning, slammed into his gut.
He should have been surprised by the feeling but he wasn’t.
Julie, forgive me, Kat thought to herself as she followed Zack into the dining room. Too close, she almost slammed into his back when he stopped short. In an instant, Zack felt jealousy die within him. . Judging from the surprised looks mirrored on both faces, neither Estelle nor Julius had been expecting Zack to walk through the door. Estelle looked past him to Kat who shrugged fatalistically. It was already too late to change the situation. Zack was about to meet a pair of nosy ghosts.
“Sorry to barge in like this…” he began then his eyes widened as he recognized the woman sitting at the dining room table, “wait a minute. I saw you the night Gustavia was taken. You showed up at the bar to warn us. I wanted to thank you but when I turned around, you were gone.” The whole time he was speaking to Estelle, Zack’s eyes kept darting past her to Julius. The man looked familiar but for once, his trained memory failed him and he could not remember where he had seen that face before.
“Maybe you’d better sit down, Zack, and I’ll introduce you.”
Since the floorboards probably would not open up and swallow her whole, Kat decided the just-rip-off-the-Band Aid approach was probably best. “I’d like you to meet Julie’s grandmother Estelle and this is her great grandfather, Julius.”
A dull silence fell over the room as Zack assessed the two entities seated at the table; Kat could see the wheels turning as his agile brain made connections and conclusions. When it fell into place for him, he pushed away from the table to stalk across the room where he stared at a shelf lined with vintage teapots without seeing any of them. He ran a hand through his hair making Kat wonder if it would feel as silky as it looked.
The tension coming off of Zack was palpable, his posture still and unyielding. Meanwhile, the two ghosts continued to sit calmly.
Suddenly he turned, “But you’re…”
“Departed? Dead, deceased, mortally challenged, ti…toes up,” Julius changed gears when Estelle’s elbow jammed into his ribs, “yes we are.”
Twinkling eyes accompanied a slightly smug smile from Estelle when Zack said, “But I can see you.”
Julius burst out, “About time, too.” His voice seemed loud in the room. “Your young man, here, is the last part of the circle. I don’t know how you expected to go on keeping him in the dark.”
Kat took umbrage at the censure she detected behind his words and the insinuation that Zack belonged to her.
“We didn’t think he could see you so what would be the point in telling him we’ve been in contact with the pair of you all this time? He’s nothing like Gustavia. His mind is closed.”
That got his attention.
Zack turned to defend the part of his mind that was insisting this could not be happening, but found he had nothing to say. He remembered where he had seen this man before, immortalized in oil in that painting on Julie’s mantel. In rapid fire, his mind produced several scenarios, each more implausible than the one before, for how or why they would go to these lengths to play out a hoax but those were nothing more than smokescreens to protect a willing suspension of disbelief.
“Lay it out for me. The whole story,” he commanded; the order proving his mind was not entirely closed. Kat had to give him credit for that much, anyway. The harp-backed wooden dining room chair thumped against the floor when Zack pulled it out somewhat forcefully and dropped into it.
“It all started when I died.” Julius began.
“Do we really need to go back that far?” Kat thought the full narrative might be too much for Zack.
“It’s important.” Estelle assured her. To Julius she said, “Try to keep it short, though.”
As concisely as possible, Julius recounted the story of his spoiled son, Estelle’s first husband Edward and how he had felt it prudent to hide the majority of his valuables to keep them being squandered before they could be passed down to future generations. When he got to the part about how he had devised a treasure hunt of sorts to ensure that only an heir of sufficient intelligence would find the heirlooms, Kat hoped he would elaborate. There was still one cache left to find and so far, Julius had provided no clues for Julie and her friends to follow.
She was doomed to disappointment because Julius only explained how his plan to leave a set of written clues had been derailed by his untimely demise.
“My last thoughts were regrets that I had not left Estelle enough information to follow through with, and then I was dead. But, when I tried to go into the light, something held me back and I was stuck where I am now, halfway between the living world and the afterlife with that harpy of an angel shouting at me for being an idiot.”
“Galmadriel?” Kat wondered.
“You talk to angels, too?” Zack wished he had a pin to poke himself with because he was sure pinching would not be enough to prove whether he was awake or dreaming.
“Not me, Amethyst.” Kat gestured for Julius to continue despite Zack’s incredulity.
“Is every spirit that visits me an earthwalker?”
“No,” Julius looked away as he told an uncomfortable truth, “we could have contacted you just as easily from inside the light but by the time I figured that out, the damage was already done.”
Estelle took up the story. “Julius tried to contact me for years but I was not sensitive enough to hear or see him. When I died and started to go into the light, he was there to try to explain things but it took too long an
d I missed my window, then I chose to stay and help.”
“Thought the angel was going to explode. Seems that kind of thing just isn’t done on the other side. I’m in a fair amount of trouble over it.”
“We’re both in trouble now, thanks to him and as punishment, they are going to make us both guardian angels.”
Kat raised an eyebrow, “Punishment? Sounds more like a reward to me.”
“Not according to Galmadriel. She says they’re going to assign us to the most hapless humans they can find for the first five centuries or so.”
“Fair enough, sounds like a perfect fit to me.” Kat wondered, “Does that mean Galmadriel is Amethyst’s guardian angel?”
Estelle and Julius exchanged an uncomfortable look.
“Not exactly. Galmadriel has other duties but she got dragged into our drama because she happened to be around at the time. None of us counted on Logan or the earthwalker getting involved.”
There was more, Kat sensed.
Over the course of Estelle telling the story, Julius had become paler and quieter until he burst out, “It was all my fault. I should have gone into the light and when I didn’t, the doorway held open just a tiny bit longer than it should. Billy must have been hovering around hoping for just such an occurrence because that’s how he managed to navigate his way to the living world, by pulling extra strength from the light. With his grudge against my family and his blood connection to Logan, he picked exactly the right time and place.”
Kat was confused. “Pulling strength from the light?”
“Earthwalkers are spirits who deliberately turn from the light. Technically, I am one as is Estelle.”
His words shocked Kat.
“But you two are not evil.” This much she knew without question.
“Only because our intentions were good and as long as we stick to those intentions, we’ll be fine. Over time, the temptation to meddle enough to alter someone’s free will gets stronger and even our intentions might not be protection enough. Most spirits never make it that long. They see reason after a generation or two and find their way back to the light. Other never wanted the light to begin with and few, like Billy, find a human host and at that point, they are beyond redemption.”
Wherever She Goes (Psychic Seasons Page 8
