by S.J. Drew
ghost of the man she had seen the night before walked through the door, fully manifested and visible to the unaided eye. "Please accept my most humble apologies for last night's intrusion. I had no business entering your private rooms without permission. I can only offer the unacceptable excuse that being dead has rendered many manners unnecessary and I have forgotten many more. Please forgive me."
"I'll think about," Isabella said. "We got some of the family history from Mrs. Gable this morning."
He looked faintly annoyed. "Yes. She and her husband have been good stewards of the house although I disapprove of it being turned into a business. Still, I do understand that the living have needs and those needs are met through earning money. I am glad; however, they ceased attempting to market the house as haunted to tourists."
"Well, it sounds like they lost all the ghostly happenings to market," Nora said.
He nodded. "Opening a business in the family house is close to selling out the family name. I accepted that, however, as a necessary evil. But capitalizing on the family tragedy to attempt to attract more ungrateful gawking tourists was not acceptable! I still retain some dignity after death," he said proudly.
"Okay, I get that. So why were you in our room last night?" Nora asked.
He stared at his feet a moment. "Did Mrs. Gable show you the portrait of my beloved Elise?"
"Yes."
"Your mistress looks so much like Elise..."
"Mistress? What are you talking about?" Nora demanded.
"I-I assume you are this young lady's personal servant," he stuttered. "You and the Spanish and Irish immigrants," he said, pointing to Leah and Maryann in turn.
"Excuse me?" Maryann exclaimed.
Nora crossed her arms. "Now listen here. I know when you were alive black people were servants or slaves and immigrants were just servants but it's been over a hundred and fifty years since you died and just a few things have changed since then. We're all equal here, you got that?"
He looked quite taken aback. "My apologies, again. I am only dimly aware of the sensibilities of the modern age, and it is quite difficult for the dead to change their ways."
"Whatever," she said. "So, yes, Isabella looks a lot like Elise. That doesn't mean you can watch her sleep like some creepy stalker."
"Yes, I agree with the sentiment. I can only make apologies for my breach in manners and etiquette. But I have been here so long, I thought perhaps my beloved Elise had finally returned to me and we could be together again," he said.
"I'm not your dead wife," Isabella replied flatly.
"You are not familiar with the concept of reincarnation?" he asked. "I know, it is a pagan belief and certainly contradictory to my Protestant upbringing, but ghosts are also a pagan belief and yet here I am."
"I know what reincarnation is," she answered. "I don't know if I believe in it."
"But you look so much like her I would swear you must be at least distantly related."
She shrugged. "It's possible, I guess. My Dad's ancestors did settle in the Boston area."
"Then perhaps there is still a chance," he said, looking slightly less translucent. "Our love was like none other. We hardly liked each other at first," he said with a laugh. "She was a servant and I barely paid her any attention until she sharply rebuked me for getting in the way of her work. I almost sent her from the house, but I was distracted by her fair face and unusual gray eyes, which I notice you share."
"I'm not your dead wife," Isabella said again.
"We bickered and sparred and one day realized we loved each other. I proposed underneath the great elm in the front yard. She accepted my proposal. Sadly, my family did not accept my marriage to a woman of such a low class. I endured such harassment from my Uncle William, curse him, and I know she did as well. Even our children were not sheltered from the harassment from the family in Boston." Fitzwilliam started to look translucent again. "Such tactics took a toll on her health. She suffered from bouts of coughing and terrible headaches that left her bedridden for days. I brought in all the finest doctors and they would give her tonics and medicines but her health continued to decline. I did not realize how fragile she was..."
"I'm very sorry," Maryann said after a few moments.
"Thank you. Even though she had been ill, her death was still quite a shock to me. I was in turns so furious I could not see straight and in such a deep grief I could not get out of my bed. I was partially convinced one of my Boston cousins had poisoned her in order to finally satisfy my Uncle William's wish that the marriage be ended. I investigated the doctors but I found no evidence of foul play."
"Do you still think your family may have murdered your wife?" Leah asked.
He sighed. "I do not know. Competency in the medical profession in my lifetime was difficult to find. It would have been easy for a cousin to bribe a doctor into giving my wife something detrimental, or the doctor could merely have been ignorant of the consequences of his prescription. Or perhaps my wife did not understand the dosing instructions and accidentally killed herself. Even now such thoughts cause me great anxiety."
"Did you kill yourself because of that?" Isabella asked.
Now he looked ashamed. "Yes and no. I took to drinking, which caused me to be violent and irritable. I was depressed, so I sought medicine to improve my moods. I made accusations of murder and foul play by my Boston relatives which caused a number of fights with them and my own children. I was engaging in many self-destructive behaviors which did lead to my death, but it was not intentional. I think perhaps the medications and alcohol should not have been combined. I went to sleep one night and never woke up."
"But if you missed your wife so much, why didn't you move on?" Nora asked.
"I have asked myself that every day. I wish to move on, but something binds me here. Upon realizing I would not be united with my beloved in Heaven, I acted out. My disruptions eventually drove my family away from their birthright. It was only recently the Gables returned and you can see what happened," he said.
"And this reincarnation thing?" Isabella said.
He seemed to brighten up again. "I wondered if perhaps I was bound here as a test of my love and devotion. I am bound to Gable House, but I may cross the boundaries for a time, and so I have often visited the city to try to alleviate the boredom. I learned of many things. I do believe one day my Elise will return to me and we can be together again."
"But why?" Isabella asked. "I mean, life and death aren't quite as separate as a lot of people think, but it's been a hundred and fifty years. If she was going to come back, wouldn't she have done so by now?"
"I don't understand all the laws of Divinity," he replied. "Perhaps she is bound in some way and cannot return until her sentence is completed. You are here now."
"Hey, just because I look like your dead wife doesn't mean I have her soul," she said. "There are seven billion people on this planet now."
"That is astonishing," he said.
"If she reincarnated, the odds that it would be in a body that happens to be the right age, live in the right part of the world, and look like her are also astonishing."
"Practically impossible, I would say," Leah added.
"Since finding myself existing after death, I no longer believe anything is impossible," he said stubbornly. "Perhaps if you stayed a bit longer in the house, you would remember your former life."
"We're leaving tomorrow," Nora said.
"That may not be enough time," he replied, and abruptly vanished.
"Okay, well, that's not ominous in any way," Leah said.
"Let's just take care of business for now," Nora replied. "We need to rehearse a bit, check out the festival, get set up, and play."
"I'd like to do a little more research on the Gable family," Isabella said. "It may be useful later. I want to go to the library and see what I can find in the archives that wouldn't be online."
"How romantic," Maryann remarked with
a wistful sigh. "Love that endures beyond death."
"That's not romantic, that's unfortunate," Nora retorted. "He's been obsessing for over a century. He should have moved on. She's not coming back and he's still here. That's pretty pathetic if you ask me."
"You have no romance in your soul," the redhead retorted.
"I'm not even sure what that means, but I do know there's nothing romantic about wasting your life, or afterlife in this case, waiting for someone else."
"Usually it's Maryann's guys that get us into trouble," Leah said.
"Hey!" Maryann snapped.
"Maryann's guys usually aren't dead, either," she continued. "And he's not really Isabella's guy."
"Ladies, let's just go," Isabella sighed.
Research, rehearsal, and the show, which was at a different venue than the previous night, actually went very well. The weather had taken a turn for the worse and was threatening thunderstorms and maybe even snow, but it held off for the show. Since they were in Salem, their costumes were very witch-themed with long black dresses and pointy black hats.
"I can't believe we actually wore crushed velvet and black lace," Nora said distastefully as they headed back to the bed and breakfast.
"Well, it kind of fits," Leah replied. "We have to fit our act to the venue, even if it means we have to wear this kind of stuff."
"I know."
"Leah, grab the emergency kit," Isabella said. "Just in case."
It started to rain as they drove and they barely got inside before the skies opened up and the rain turned to
