Emily's Ghost

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  *****

  When she woke up it was blackest night, and a driving, vindictive rain was pitching itself through her open window. The wind was bending the tops of the maples outside her third-floor bedroom; their heavy, wet branches clawed at the side of the shingled house, pressing, insisting. Emily sat up in bed. Her right hand buckled with pain. Wincing and groggy, she staggered to the open, double-hung window and tried to pull down the lower part. It stuck -- it always stuck -- and was impossible to lower with only one hand.

  She tried a combination of forearm and good hand, but still the window resisted. With a moan of despair Emily crawled back into bed and pulled the quilt up to her chin. The rain pounded and bounced and made flying leaps from the windowsill to her cheek, where it mingled with an occasional tear. She'd never felt as alone and helpless in her life as she was feeling now.

  The room became suffused with soft light -- no more than forty watts' worth-- and O'Malley was there, sitting at the foot of her bed. He seemed less real to her now, more shadowy. It made her feel less self-conscious. In her tired and fanciful state, she wondered whether some of his essence had been absorbed by the storm, or whether it was just that her madness was subsiding.

  "Feeling better?" he asked in a kindly voice.

  She rolled her head away. "Not especially." He sounded as real as ever, she thought, dispirited.

  "Your thoughts seemed far away."

  "I was wondering," she said to herself more than to him, "who will take care of me if I am mad. All four of my brothers are married; all of them have wives ... and kids ...."

  "Never fear, Emily. Ye're not mad."

  "I suppose I'll find out tomorrow."

  "When ye go off to Newarth? Ye'll see I'm right."

  "I don't want you to come along," she said dully, thinking about the psychiatrist she planned to see. "Not at first."

  "What? Ye'll need my help--" he argued, jumping up.

  "Not at first," she repeated. She pulled the quilt up over her shoulder and burrowed into her pillow, signaling an end to the discussion. Reality or delusion, she wanted him to go away.

  For a long moment the only sound was of the rain drumming on the roof. Finally O'Malley spoke, in a voice of chilling calm. "All right. Since ye seem to think I'll be a hindrance, I'll stay out of it for the present. But hear me good: we made a bargain. I trust ye to keep it."

  When Emily dared open her eyes again, it was blackest night.

  Chapter 7

  Monday morning was nothing like Sunday night. With a bright warm sun to give her courage, Emily marched defiantly out of her condo, determined to take her problem and lay it at the feet of the man who started it all: Senator Arthur Lee Alden III. Forget the psychiatrist. Forget the library. What she wanted was something more along the line of Ghostbusters, and it was the senator who came closest to fitting the bill.

  She slipped her key into the door of her parked Corolla and glanced up at her third-floor window, half expecting to see a shadowy figure move away from the shutters. But there was no sign of Fergus O'Malley; nor had there been all morning. It didn't matter. Hallucination or abomination, shortly he was going to be someone else's problem. Emily wasn't too proud to admit that she needed help on this one.

  She drove directly to the senator's office building in downtown Boston. Lee Alden would be in Washington, but his secretary would know his schedule, and his aide would be able to add to it. She found Mrs. Cusack behind her desk, looking as sensible as ever. The secretary let her know that the senator wasn't due back until the end of the week. Was there, she asked Emily pleasantly, a problem with the upcoming interview?

  Emily answered just as pleasantly, "Not at all. But it's rather important that I speak with him, even if only by phone."

  As if on cue Jim Whitewood popped his head out of his office and said, "Millie, I've got the senator on the horn and I can't find the day care file. Is it on your desk?"

  "No. I'll help you look." She stood up and Jim Whitewood withdrew without a glance at Emily. The secretary paused and reconsidered, then pressed the blinking button on her phone line. "Senator? I have Emily Bowditch next to me. She needs to speak with you. Do you have a moment, while we look for the file? Good."

  With a smile that might have meant anything she handed the phone to a dumbstruck Emily and went off in pursuit of the aide.

  "Emily?" Lee Alden's voice, deep and assured, rocketed through her. "What's up?"

  Oh, sure, let's talk ghosts, Emily thought wildly. She kept a watchful eye through the open door on the distracted pair and said in a whisper, "Look, Senator, there's been a complication. It has to do with the séance." Only then did she remember that Lee Alden had left her in a huff afterward. It seemed a hundred years ago.

  And yet he sounded friendly enough -- even glad to be talking with her. "If you tell me you've sold your story to the National Enquirer, I'll be disappointed," he said dryly.

  "Nothing like that," she answered, intensely preoccupied. The other two could return any second. "But that night, I think something got ... loose."

  "You mean, like a parakeet?"

  "No. Not a parakeet." Mrs. Cusack, who'd stuck her head around the corner to see if Emily were still on the phone, gave her a curious look.

  "Emily, this may not be the appropriate forum for 'Twenty Questions'," the senator suggested at the other end. "Tell me what it is that got loose at the séance."

  Emily turned her body away from the open door and cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. "A goddamned ghost, that's what."

  There was no response. Then she heard Jim Whitewood's voice on an extension: "Hello? Hello, Senator?"

  The senator's voice came in at last, cool and detached: "Thanks for the tip, Ms. Bowditch. I'll take it under advisement."

  Emily hung up and got out of there before Jim Whitewood had the chance to tell her what a nitwit she was -- assuming he'd heard her. On the other hand, if anyone would believe her, presumably he was the one. Unless he was a fraud and opportunist. Or unless he thought she was making it all up to -- who knew? -- get in bed with Lee Alden. Any way she looked at it, it was a mortifying thought.

  When she got to work the first thing Stanley Cooper said was, "What happened to your hand?"

  Apparently she'd been favoring it; she cursed Stan's relentless powers of observation and said, "Burned it." She slung her purse over the back of her chair and that's when she saw the telephone message written, thank God, not in Stan's handwriting: "Concerning the parakeet, call at noon."

  "Getting a new pet?"

  Ah, shit, he saw it.

  She avoided looking at Stan. "No. Yes. Why not?"

  Stan shrugged and turned back to his computer screen. "It's just that you've always made a big deal about being footloose and fancy-free."

  "A parakeet is not a farm animal," she said in a strained voice.

  "Still needs to be fed. Watered. Paper changed."

  He knows something's up. Why do I even try? "You're right, Stan. There's no room in my life for a parakeet. I'll call the guy and tell him that."

  Stan gave her a sharp look, and then backed off. But for how long? Emily wasn't sure where Jim Whitewood really stood on the paranormal, but she knew exactly how Stanley Cooper felt. One little complaint from her about a haunted condo and her career was history. Her only possible ally right now was a man she was fond of calling a flake.

  At noon Emily slipped away from her desk and found a quiet phone. She was put directly through to the senator.

  "Is this line -- you know -- safe?" she asked naively.

  He assured her it was.

  There wasn't much point to beating around the bush, so she said in a rush, "There's this guy, Fergus, who showed up after the séance. Actually, he showed up at the séance. You heard him: he's the voice who said he couldn't stand it any more. What he meant was, he couldn't stand being left between heaven and hell, if that's what they're called, because that means he can't come back until ... well, he's an astral being, or he wou
ld be, if he could be vindicated of a crime he didn't really commit. Well, he did commit the burglary, but not the murder -- he says he didn't, and I believe him."

  She paused for breath.

  "Are we on Candid Camera?"

  "No, we're not on Candid Camera. I'm not kidding. There's a ghost in my condo. Kimberly let him out, and I can't figure out how to get him back in ... wherever. He says if I solve the murder, he'll be able to get on with ... whatever. That's where he thinks I am now, in the library, working on the case."

  "In the library?"

  "Well, it happened a hundred-odd years ago. Where else am I supposed to go?"

  "Are we on Candid Camera?"

  Her voice began to rise in her throat. "Listen, Senator, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be in this mess. Ever since Kimberly, my life has been chaos. You started it; now you do something about it." She hadn't realized what an emotional wreck she'd become; her next words made it clear. "Please, Senator," she begged, her voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. "I need you here ... I ...." She broke down and began sobbing. She hated herself for every sniffle, but she couldn't help it.

  "My God, Emily ... all right." His voice sounded alarmed but firm. "I'll be at your place tonight. Expect me late. Give me the address."

  She did, in a halting voice, and they rang off. Instantly she felt like a fool. She tried not to think about it for the rest of the day and instead forced herself to go through the motions of her next assignment for the Journal: a dull little exposé of a defaulting builder who'd submitted false bond securities to the city for a playground he never built. Luckily the builder had an ego as big as the John Hancock Tower; he was more than willing to talk in a phone interview, so half the story wrote itself. Nonetheless Emily worked late, not because the piece was giving her trouble, but because she couldn't face Fergus O'Malley alone.

  And she wasn't sure why. She was basically terrified of him, that went without saying. And she was weirdly sorry to disappoint him by coming home empty-handed. But mostly her pride was smarting because she'd been forced to call in the marines. She stalled a little longer by eating dinner out, and then at about nine o'clock she headed home to what was bound to be a no-win night. Tired and preoccupied, she had to park her car well up the street and then force herself to stay alert for muggers.

  She made it in one piece and saw the senator's BMW parked squarely in front of the rambling Victorian of which she was making payments on such a very small part. He was here! The question was -- since there was no lobby -- where? She let herself in and found him sitting on the top stair outside of her apartment, looking rumpled but at ease.

  "Senator! I'm sorry! You said you'd be late!"

  "I meant don't hold dinner, that's all." His smile was captivating. It bowled her over, that ability to be almost intimately reassuring and yet not quite pushy.

  "How did you get in?" she asked. "Wait, don't tell me; the outside door wasn't locked. Darn college kids. They're renting the first-floor condo and they treat the whole building like a dormitory. Just about anybody could get in here."

  The senator nodded towards her apartment and then turned back to her. "Apparently just about anybody did," he said, without humor.

  She'd been fumbling with her keys. Now she dropped them. "I can't begin to imagine what you must think of me," she mumbled, stooping to pick them up. "A nut case, right?"

  But the senator was there before her. Scooping the keys up in his hand, he stood up as she straightened up. They were very close, very tentative. "An intriguing case, maybe," he said. "But not a nut case."

  He was near enough that she felt the sweep of his breath across her cheek. There was something about him so warm, so vital --so completely in contrast with Fergus O'Malley -- that she lifted her face to him, as a daisy orients itself to the sun. The senator touched his finger to the tip of her nose and said, "Now. Shall we see what's behind that locked door of yours?"

  He selected a key, the right key, from her ring and slid it into the lock. Immediately Emily had misgivings.

  "He could do something -- could hurt you," she whispered suddenly. "He has a horrible temper. He threatened me last night."

  The senator threw her a glance of real concern and turned the key. He pushed the door open, then paused at the threshold.

  Emily grabbed his arm and said, "No! You shouldn't have come."

  "Too late now," the senator said, and flipped on the light just inside the door.

  Emily was right behind him. The condo looked the way she'd left it -- a mess. There were yellow pads everywhere, and loose sheets of paper littering the room. Clothes were left where they fell, a pizza box covered the small dinette, and empty cracker boxes were sprouting like mushrooms from the floor. Juice cans, Coke cans, a saucer piled high with dried brown tea bags --the place had the look of a dorm room after an all-night cram. And the television was on! Had she left it on after catching some morning news? She stared at the baseball game, trying to remember.

  The senator was glancing around the room, taking it all in.

  Emily sprang into action. "This isn't normal," she said, grabbing up litter by the armful. "I'm much neater than this, really, but he was dictating so fast...."

  "Don't worry about it," the senator said, walking up to the television. His hand paused on the off-button as the announcer intoned, "So at the end of the fourth inning it's the Boston Red Sox 3, the Yankees 1." A half-smile flitted briefly over his face. He turned off the set.

  Emily was watching him. "You don't believe me," she said, stopping dead in her tracks. Her arms were full of damp towels and empty cartons; her eyes were burning with indignation. "You're more interested in the game!"

  "I turned it off," he protested.

  "Eventually!"

  "Emily, trust me on this one: I really can walk and chew gum at the same time. Whether the Red Sox win or lose will not affect my ability to help you."

  "You're right; I'm sorry. I'm just on edge, that's all." She dropped the armload, crumbs and all, into a side-chair and said helplessly, "He might be anywhere."

  "They're said always to appear in the same place," the senator ventured.

  Emily pointed to her darkened bedroom. "He was in there the night of the séance." She felt a ridiculous, intense surge of disloyalty. She flashed back to the third grade, when someone told the teacher that she was hiding in the cloakroom eating a stolen candy bar. Snitch! she'd cried to the girl later. Snitch, snitch, snitch!

  But this was different. "Please be careful. He filled me with light, a great ... burning light. It was terrifying ...."

  Part of her was convinced that the ghost wouldn't dare attack a United States Senator; and part of her shut her eyes tightly in self-defense. She waited. When she opened her eyes again the senator was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, watching her thoughtfully. "Nothing?" she asked in a small voice.

  "Nothing obvious," he answered. "I've brought a pocket tape recorder with me." He set it up on her desk, where she was sitting. "I want you to tell me about this light."

  She did, running through the sequence of events in great detail, trying to convey her terror. "I've always read about knees that knocked," she said, "and the accounts always seemed melodramatic. Now I know better." She studied her hands, folded and locked in her lap, aware that she sounded like a patient spilling her guts to a psychiatrist. And yet she was feeling relieved, finally talking about it with someone.

  The senator had let her run on, almost in a monologue, before he spoke. "Do you think he's here now?" he asked from his seat on the sofa. His voice was calm, a therapist's voice.

  Too calm; it annoyed her. "Of course I do," she answered. She'd been trying so hard not to make Fergus sound like a hallucination. All things considered, she preferred that Fergus be real and that she be not insane. "You're probably sitting on him right now," she added, a little evilly.

  The senator didn't flinch; his handsome face remained impassive. "Do you think he'll show himself to me?"

  Em
ily pushed her locked hands away from her in a stretch to relieve her tension. "I dunno. Maybe you have to be wearing the necklace. Want to try it?" she challenged, reaching up behind her as if to undo the clasp.

  "No, not now," the senator answered. "We can always try that later. After all, he's not appearing to you either at the moment."

  He rose to his feet and began taking in the measure of the apartment, stopping now and then to pick up some object or look at a framed print. It was as if he was trying to know her through her things. He seemed to Emily much too big for her place, larger than life somehow. He belonged in a suit of armor and on a horse-- not easing himself between a t.v. stand and a shelf of paperback books to get a better look at a poster-print she'd bought from the Harvard Coop. Emily thought of her friend Cara Miles. Cara's townhouse would be grand enough to suit him; and her Picassos -- both of them --were genuine.

  The senator's little tour didn't last long. He came back to the tape recorder and turned it off. Emily noticed, not for the first time, how big his hands were: strong and well formed, with prominent veins. If it were a question of manual combat, she had no doubt who'd prevail. But it wasn't. The senator picked up some of her notes and glanced through them while she kept one eye on the table lamp, watching for changes in wattage, and one ear cocked for ghost sounds.

  "Am I missing something?" the senator asked lightly, looking up from the yellow pad of notes. "This is an impressive amount of information, by the way," he added. He turned the tape recorder back on. "Have you ever been to Newarth?"

  She shook her head. "He's not going to show," she said, drumming her fingers nervously. "I knew he wouldn't. I just knew it."

  "You last saw the apparition last night?"

  She nodded. "It was raining; I was very depressed. He came into the bedroom, I think almost to comfort me. We ended up arguing about whether he was coming with me on the investigation. I told him not to tag along and he got mad." Emily slumped in her chair a little at the recollection; her hair slid forward over one cheek.