GHOSTS: 2014 edition (THE GHOST STORIES OF NOEL HYND # 1)

by Noel Hynd

  Brooks pressed forward. Then the resistance against him was gone. He felt a surge of relief. He looked to his friend.

  The minister grinned. “Come on, Timmy,” Osaro said. “I think something just left. Maybe for good. Who knows?” He froze for a second. “It’s safe to enter. That’s the vibration I get.” He held for a final split second. Then, “Come on,” he said. His voice was relaxed and calm. “Nothing to fear. I promise.”

  Osaro walked through the house first. Brooks followed him from two or three steps behind. Osaro seemed to proceed with mounting interest, occasionally stopping to sense a room or examine a piece of furniture. Brooks tailed along warily, keeping his thoughts and apprehensions to himself.

  They stopped in the living room where Emmet Hughes was reconstructing the wall. They went to the second floor and then with particular caution went through the attic. Brooks reminded Osaro about the incident involving the attic door and the dummy. Osaro nodded thoughtfully and offered nothing. Then they went back downstairs.

  In the kitchen, they found the door to the basement open and unlatched.

  “What’s this? A cellar?” Osaro asked.

  Brooks nodded. “Usually it’s kept closed.”

  “Worth a look?” the minister asked.

  “Definitely.”

  They turned on a light and walked down the creaking wooden stairs.

  Brooks recalled his own sense of unease about the basement. He also wondered why the door had been left open.

  The answer to that question was soon answered as innocently as possible. On the concrete at the foot of the cellar steps, Emmet Hughes had left some measuring devices, note papers and other carpentry tools. Obviously, he envisioned working here as well as in the living room.

  Osaro stood by the section of the floor that was earthen. His eyes searched the floor, then the walls. Finally, he glanced overhead. At this moment, he looked more like a building inspector than a spiritualist.

  “So?” Brooks finally asked.

  “Nice old house.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  Osaro smiled. “There’s nothing really to get upset about here, Timmy,” Osaro said softly. “We’ll talk outside.” Brooks was increasingly uncomfortable. “Unless, of course,” Osaro said, “something suddenly leaps out at us and puts its teeth to our throats.”

  Osaro grinned.

  “Very funny,” Brooks aid.

  “I thought so,” Osaro said lightly. “Just a little joke.” His eyes settled upon Brooks. “What’s the matter? You’re a little jumpy down here.”

  Brooks folded his arms. “How do you know you’re not missing something?” he asked.

  “We’ll talk outside,” Osaro said again.

  They turned and started upstairs. Brooks went first. Three-quarters of the way to the top of the steps, Osaro stopped, looked back down and swept the area with his eyes. Then they were back on the main floor. Brooks closed the cellar door and latched it.

  “I’ve seen enough,” Osaro said. “Unless you have something else to show me.”

  “I do. One thing,” Brooks said.

  He led his friend back into the living room and to the checkerboard table that sat unobtrusively in a front corner of the chamber.

  “Know what this is?” Brooks asked.

  “Looks like some scrawny little antique table to me,” Osaro said. “Not a bad piece, I suppose,” he said, studying it further. “It’d make good firewood, I know that. Why? Should I recognize it?”

  “Maybe,” said Brooks. “Wasn’t there a woman in your parish named Helen Ritter?”

  Osaro thought for a moment, placing the name. “Of course. A very old, very sweet woman. Died two weeks ago. I used to visit her at Mid Island Convalescent.”

  “Then you’ve seen the table before.”

  Osaro frowned, not understanding.

  “Mrs. Ritter willed the table to Annette,” Brooks explained. “Wanted her to have it. Did Mrs. Ritter ever tell you what she used to do with it?”

  Osaro shrugged. “Keep the business records for a local whorehouse?” he guessed facetiously.

  “I’m being serious.”

  “So was I. Hey, I would have no way of knowing, Timmy,” Osaro said.

  “What did she use the table for?”

  “Ever heard of table-turning?”

  Osaro looked at Brooks with a stunned expression, one which then changed to surprise. Almost shock. “Oh, yeah?” he said in a low voice. “Really? That’s what she told you?”

  “Anything to it? Table turning?” Brooks asked. “You’re the one with the inside track to the spirit world.”

  “Old Mrs. Ritter used to turn tables? Is that what you’re telling me?” Reverend Osaro shook his head in amazement. “I’ll be darned.”

  “She said she used to turn that table,” Brooks said. “Used it for successful séances. Talked to dead relatives through it. Did it with her mother and sister when she was much younger.”

  Osaro was shaking his head. “Dear old Mrs. Ritter. That nice old hen was a spiritualist, huh?” he muttered. “I never realized.” He ran his fingers across the rims of the table. The wood was richly colored and almost warm to the eye.

  “Mrs. Ritter said she always needed three participants. Three people who believed. Then that table would fly,” Brooks said. He waited.

  Osaro was forthcoming with nothing.

  “Ever heard of stuff like that working?” Brooks asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Osaro answered routinely. “In movies. Aside from that, most people discredit it. Then again, I’ve known cases where it worked. I’ve heard of people turning tables in houses like this one, where there’s been a disturbance.”

  Brooks drew his friend from the living room and they walked toward the rear door to the house.

  “I knew firsthand of a case in Westport, Connecticut, a few years ago,” Osaro continued. “A medium turned a table so well that the table danced up the walls of a disturbed house. I knew of another case in Nashua, New Hampshire—I saw this one when I was in divinity school—where this West Indian woman could actually levitate a table. Her name was Madame Patricia Truth. Or something like that. Made the table rise a foot off the ground just by putting her fingertips to it.”

  “Come on,” Brooks said. They stepped out of the house.

  Brooks used the key to lock it.

  “I saw this one, Tim. It was the scariest thing I ever saw. She called forth a demon in broad daylight. A real bad spirit that had no business in this world. No strings. No mirrors. No trick tablecloths. The table rose and the spirit came forth.”

  “What’s the point of it?” Brooks asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘what’s the point of it’?”

  “Turning tables. What does it accomplish?”

  “Arguably,” Osaro explained, “you’re providing a comfortable conduit for a spirit. If you can call forth whatever spirit is present in a disturbed place, you can address the source of the disturbance. That way, you can put a soul to rest.” He paused. “Or at least, that’s the theory.”

  Brooks replaced the key under the mossy rock. There was little outside light left. They walked toward Brooks’ car. “You sound dubious,” Brooks finally said.

  Osaro shrugged.

  “Have you ever seen it work?” Brooks asked. “Putting the spirit to rest?”

  “It worked in the Westport case. The haunting stopped after two séances. But it didn’t work in the New Hampshire case. The séances were followed by a general smashing of windows, plates and furniture about the house. The spirit said it had left its earthly body—died, in other words—in nineteen twelve. Now it enjoyed wandering through a nether world, resisted passing along to the next world and apparently didn’t wish to be summoned.”

  “How did they finally get rid of it?”

  “Between you and me?”

  “Yes.”

  “They didn’t. The house has had five owners in seven years. And the disturbances continue. They com
e and go.”

  Brooks thought about it for a moment, then stopped as they arrived at his car. “So what do you think about it here?”

  “About what?”

  “Turning Mrs. Ritter’s table to see what’s in the house.”

  “You said you needed three believers.”

  “I got them.”

  “Who?”

  “Annette. Me.” He paused. “And…”

  “Me? Oh, no way, Brother Brooks!” said Osaro. “Absolutely not.”

  “Ah, come on, George. You’re the expert on this stuff and every time we need you I have to drag you forward.”

  “So what does that tell you?”

  “It tells me that you claim you believe in this stuff but you’re never willing to follow through.”

  “Just stuff like this,” Osaro corrected. “Timmy, this conversation is starting to sound like one we had a few weeks ago. Remember? I told you I didn’t want to be involved. And not just because Herr Kommandant Bishop is on my case.”

  “Yeah, you told me, but…”

  “Well, I’ll refresh your mind, Timmy, since you seem to have the memory retention of a goldfish these days, about seven seconds. This is the occult! This is opening up that window, that crack into one of the other universes that I warned you about. It may be a very dark and very evil universe. I always wondered whether Pandora’s Box was a metaphor for this, written by someone who’d interacted with malevolent spirits.”

  Brooks grimaced with disappointment.

  “You don’t know what’s on the other side that you’re going to contact, Tim. It’s not like a prayer, talking to God, sensing the spirit or presence of Jesus. This, my friend, is going in exactly the opposite direction.”

  Brooks shuffled his feet.

  “I don’t summon up spirits,” Osaro said. “I try to acknowledge that they’re there and deal with them in keeping with my theology. Some are at Heaven’s doorstep and just need a little more soothing to take those final wonderful steps. But I’m not going to help summon forth something that’s headed not to Heaven but to Hell. I might not be able to control it. And you won’t either.”

  “But…?”

  “There’s another reason, too,” Osaro continued in an even tone. “Turning tables is a highly suggestive procedure. Like faith healing. Or hypnotism. Or like an exorcism. You expect to see. You want to believe. So suddenly you can’t even trust your own eyes.”

  “What’s the matter with that?”

  “Go look at the literature at Harvard, Timmy,” Osaro said. “Make a trip over to Cambridge. When you start to see, sometimes you never stop seeing. When the wrong spirit gets into your mind, sometimes it won’t let go.”

  “I already hear one of them.”

  “That’s because you’re letting it control you. Instead of you controlling it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  In the tree branches above them, there was another rustle.

  “I think the spirits are everywhere, Tim. I’ve told you that many times before. But it’s when we finally devoutly decide that, yes, we can believe, that we begin to communicate with them. For some reason you’ve done that. You’ve allowed spirits into your mind and…”

  “Only one,” Brooks corrected. “Only one spirit.”

  “I’m sure there are more. But that’s not the point. This is: it’s your mind, isn’t it? Don’t let a malevolent force play mental games with you. You control it. You tell it what it can or can’t do. The only reality it has is the one you give it.”

  “Or other people give it,” Brooks said.

  “Right.”

  Osaro eyed his friend. Brooks looked confused, as well as angry.

  “I still want to do the table,” he said.

  Osaro smiled and shook his head.

  “Take your table and stuff it,” Osaro said. “There’s no need.”

  “What do you mean, ‘there’s no need.’”

  “It’s gone, Timmy.”

  “What’s gone?”

  “You were right. There was something in this house. It pushed past us when we opened the door. I suspect it didn’t care for my presence.”

  “Because you’re a clergyman?”

  “Whatever. The spirit pushed past us and came outside. You felt it, didn’t you?”

  “I felt something.”

  Osaro opened his hands and grinned.

  “Where did it go?” Brooks asked.

  Osaro shrugged. “Heaven. Hell. Cleveland. No way of knowing. It might not turn up anywhere else for a hundred years. Spirits have no sense of time, you know. Time ceases when you’re dead.”

  Brooks stared. “You are creepy.”

  “I’m not trying to be. Look. Did I answer your question? You should be pleased, by the way.”

  Brooks was confused. “You didn’t feel anything in there? Anything evil?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  Osaro hedged. He pursed his lips.

  “Yes, I think there’s the spirit of something in there. A woman. Maybe two females. But there are dozens of houses like that on this island. And generally spirits like that don’t bother anyone.” He thought further. “This house had a light sense. Almost one of warmth. But I didn’t grasp anything in the air.”

  The minister hesitated as if there were more. Then he decided that there was. “There was only one thing that bothered me.”

  “What was that?”

  “Something in the basement. I got some bad, bad sensations down there.”

  “A spirit? I thought you said…”

  “No. Not a spirit,” Osaro said. “I think… I don’t know. It’s as if a thought kept trying to form itself in my head but never did take shape. It’s as if something happened in that basement once. Something highly traumatic. I think it left an emotional imprint on the place. Ever had the history of the house traced?”

  “No.”

  “You might give that a shot if there are any further spiritual manifestations. Problem is, whatever happened could have occurred two hundred years ago. The imprint would still be there. For those who feel such things, at least. For everyone else,” he said, shrugging, “it’s just a stinky basement.”

  Down the road, a car came around the bend. Its headlights cast a pair of long shadows toward them. One of them crossed Osaro’s face for a moment and gave it a strange cast. At the same time, the minister glanced above his head. There was another rustling, a breeze, presumably, above them in the branches of the trees.

  The minister said a low profanity.

  “What’s the matter?” Brooks asked.

  “It’s completely dark. I really wanted to hit some hoops.”

  “Well, you got a car, I got a car. And they both have electrical systems. Right?”

  It took a moment. Then, “Yeah!” Osaro said as if in revelation.

  “Great idea.”

  They drove back to the parish house to get the Voyager. Both men changed into sneakers. They drove to the basketball court, positioned their car lights to crisscross the south hoop and played one-on-one till nine thirty.

  Brooks won two games: Fifty to forty-two, fifty to forty-four. He was ten for ten in foul shots. Throughout, Brooks noted, there were two games in progress on the court. One played by the human figures. And the second played by shadows, the silhouettes of the two players, cast in long, ominous patterns across the asphalt, jockeying with a shadow ball that loomed large, misshapen and ominous in silhouette as well.

  A shadow universe, Brooks thought. A shadow reality. But at the end of Sunday evening, their scores were identical. Later that night, Brooks slept well. He wanted to believe that the disturbances at Cort Street were at an end. But now, in a new way, he again had trouble believing.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Emmet Hughes, alone in the house at 17 Cort Street at eight A.M. the following morning, unlatched the door to the basement. He reached into the stairwell and turned on the light. Then the workman trudged downs
tairs. He carried his radio under one arm and his tool chest in the other hand.

  He arrived on the concrete of the basement floor. He glanced in the direction of the furnace, toward the earthen section of the floor. Then, as he set down his equipment, he scanned the ceiling, trying to follow the supporting beams.

  He searched for the beam that had been injured when the china cabinet had been torn from the living-room wall. He shined a flashlight at the ceiling and found the timber he wanted.

  He moved to the area where the concrete ended and the earth began. He retrieved his radio and turned it on. More classic rock from the mainland.

  Using a step stool, Hughes reached to the beam and pushed his hand against it. It gave signs of both age and unsteadiness. He would need to make a brace for it. And, upon further examination of the cross beams beneath the living room, he also concluded that an extra support might be advisable beneath the house.

  Hughes set to work with measurements. An hour passed as he examined the construction of the basement. It was then that Hughes started to sense something.

  There was first the incident involving a pair of pliers. Hughes distinctly felt that he had set them down behind him while he calculated the weight that an extra iron post would need to support. Yet when he turned to pick them up, they had moved about five feet farther away and were on the seat of an old chair. Hughes didn’t remember placing them there. So who was playing tricks on him? Who, when he was alone in the house, and no one else had come and gone?

  At another time a bit later, Hughes was making notes upon a writing pad when the temperature of the entire cellar plummeted. He felt as if he were in a severe draft. The room was so cold that it defied belief. Hughes felt his teeth chatter. He was sure that the temperature had dropped to freezing, before suddenly climbing again.

  Inexplicable. Even in an old house. It was as if a gust of arctic air had drifted through. But it was after the incident involving the air temperature that an even stranger feeling came over Hughes. One of dread. Foreboding. For some reason his focus settled upon the dirt part of the basement floor and the stairs. It was as if he were caught between two strange fields.