Ghostwriting

by Traci Harding

  The officer laughed. ‘I don’t get many corpses through here,’ he advised sarcastically. ‘And films are so realistic these days, that it probably wouldn’t be much help.’

  ‘But aren’t you curious?’ Shannon pushed, feeling that every risk she took made her safer. Then, as the officer was beginning to look interested, she added, ‘You’re not planning on eating soon, are you?’

  He seemed sceptical about her question.

  ‘Aw,’ she waved off the thought, ‘if you’ve got a good stomach, it shouldn’t put you off your food for too long.’

  The officer rolled his eyes and placed the suitcase flat on the counter to open it up and take a look.

  Shannon looked back toward Billie, who looked as if she might wet herself at any moment. Shannon said a silent prayer, then looked back to the officer as he closed the bag.

  All the colour had drained from his face. ‘Looks pretty real to me.’

  Shannon was tempted to bow her head in defeat, for she fully expected his next words to be, Follow me, please.

  ‘Your art department did a real good job.’

  He handed Shannon back her order form and suitcase. ‘Have a great stay. Good luck with the film.’

  No sooner was she through customs than Shannon’s knees went to jelly. What if the officer had called the production company to confirm the order? She could have been carted off to an Irish prison and stuck with terrorists for the rest of her life.

  ‘I am never doing anything like that again,’ she began mumbling over and over, under her breath.

  ‘That was so fucking great!’ Billie came bouncing over to pat Shannon on the back. ‘Apart from the fact that I nearly pissed myself several times!’

  ‘Shhh!’ Shannon encouraged her friend to keep her enthusiasm down to a low roar. ‘I’m having a panic attack right now. Have a little respect.’

  ‘But we’re home free,’ Billie grabbed both Shannon’s shoulders and shook hard. ‘You’re a total legend!’

  Billie, Shannon and their bag of bones got a room in the city of Tarlee for the night, and planned to head to the town of Ballyheige on the morrow. Outside of Ballyheige lay the seaside properties where both Katlin and Timothy had grown up.

  Before they left the film editing suite in Sydney, Katlin had informed Shannon and Billie, via the computer, that Timothy O’Mally’s family had owned their property forever and she suspected that he’d been laid to rest in the family cemetery situated thereon. So the plan was to head straight to the seaside property and see what they could discover.

  As they drove down the road past Ballyheige, the sound of weeping was heard coming from the back seat. The girls guessed that they were getting close to Katlin’s home and that she was happy to see it.

  They found the O’Mally property just where Katlin had said it would be, although some of the land must have been sold off over the years, as only a small farm was attached to the house now.

  They knocked several times on the door of the large cottage, which was rather weatherbeaten and in need of some maintenance, but since there weren’t any cars parked in view they weren’t surprised when no one showed up to meet them.

  ‘I wonder if they’d mind us just having a quick look,’ Billie mumbled, able to see the fenced-off family plot from where they stood.

  ‘I’d mind.’ Shannon tried to discourage Billie, who had already begun to make tracks in the direction of the cemetery.

  ‘Look …’ Billie paused from her stride only long enough to justify her intent, ‘we’ve come all this way, and it’s just over there! I’m going to look … if it bothers you so much, then wait here and keep watch.’

  As Shannon observed her friend head up the hill toward the fenced-off gravestones, her curiosity got the better of her and she ran to catch up to Billie.

  They moved past the recent deaths in the O’Mally family and back a few generations.

  ‘Here he is,’ Billie exclaimed in delighted disbelief. ‘Timothy James O’Mally, born 1898, deceased 1938.’

  ‘Hey, that was the year after Katlin’s murder,’ Shannon noted aloud. There were no fond words on Timothy’s gravestone about him being a loving husband or father, so she looked to the next gravestone to see if it belonged to his spouse.

  In the place of a name the grave only had the initials ‘KO’ engraved.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Billie muttered under her breath, both women shocked to their cores for a second. Then, snapping out of their daze, they grabbed each other in a hug and began dancing about.

  ‘This is such great news for Katlin.’ Shannon wiped the tears of joy from her eyes to read the rest of the inscription. ‘Born 1899, deceased 1937… that confirms it.’ She noted the years corresponded to the duration of Katlin’s life. ‘In fond memory of my lost love.’ Shannon choked on the last few words and would have burst into tears again had she not been startled by the cutting tone of a man’s voice.

  ‘Hey! This is private property.’

  ‘This should be interesting,’ Billie muttered aside to Shannon as they watched a young farmer approach.

  ‘Yeah,’ Shannon quietly agreed. ‘Please let me do the talking.’

  ‘No worries,’ Billie confirmed. ‘I sure as hell have no burning desire to explain what we’re doing here.’

  ‘Can I help you with something?’ the man asked, his hostility waning as he approached the girls.

  His lovely accent put a smile on Shannon’s face. ‘Actually, and I know this is going to sound bizarre, but I’m hoping we might be able to be of service to your family … if you are still of the clan O’Mally, that is?’

  ‘This property was passed on to me via my family,’ he answered her question, seeming wary of where her tale might be leading.

  ‘See …’ Shannon paused to consider how to phrase this and figured the short explanation was probably the best. ‘We have the remains of KO.’ She pointed to the gravestone and the farmer’s jaw dropped.

  ‘You’re the fiery angels?’ he mumbled, confused.

  Both women stood and blinked, neither knowing what to make of the query.

  Upon seeing their reaction the young man waved off his own comment and gave a heavy sigh. ‘I suppose the folks in town already warned you that I’m mad.’

  ‘We bypassed town,’ Shannon informed him gently. He didn’t seem the slightest bit unbalanced in her opinion. If anything, he was almost too perceptive.

  ‘Then how did you know where to find my family home?’ Although he was puzzled, he seemed relieved that his reputation did not precede him in this instance.

  ‘KO told us where we’d find this place.’ Shannon wanted to cringe as she confessed this, fearing that now the farmer would think she was nuts.

  He smiled and frowned at once, appearing to empathise with her predicament. ‘Perhaps a cup of tea is in order … whilst we get our wires uncrossed.’

  The farmer’s name was Sean O’Mally. Timothy O’Mally had been his grandfather’s older brother.

  ‘There are lots of ghosts on this property, seeing as most of my ancestors are buried here.’ Sean didn’t feel too bad admitting as much after hearing some of Shannon’s tale. ‘But I only started seeing my great-uncle, Tim, in the last couple of weeks. Every time I wander past the cemetery, as I do often in the course of a day’s work, Timothy has been standing inside the cemetery fence yelling at me. “Welcome the fiery angels. They are bringing my love home.”’

  ‘The ghost didn’t come down to the house to bother you?’ Billie probed.

  ‘He can’t,’ Sean explained. ‘His spirit is confined to the patch of hallowed ground where he was buried.’

  ‘That’s interesting.’ Billie bit her lip a moment, thinking that, in that case, Heartley wasn’t buried on hallowed ground.

  ‘How did you know the ghost in question was your great-uncle Tim?’ Shannon had to wonder, as Timothy had died long before Sean was born.

  Sean shrugged as though the answer was elementary. ‘I asked him. How did Katlin lead you
here if you did not converse with her?’

  ‘We communicated via a PC screen,’ Shannon replied honestly, not considering how weird her response sounded until Sean burst out laughing.

  ‘A cyber-psychic. I like that.’ His amusement faded a little. ‘If the people in town think I’m nuts, heaven only knows what they’ll make of you.’

  Billie sat at the table watching Shannon and Sean smile at each other, whereupon she realised it was time for her to make a quiet exit.

  ‘I thought everyone in Ireland believed in ghosts?’ Shannon queried the cause of Sean’s reputation.

  ‘Ah, yes, everyone has a ghost story to tell,’ he confirmed. ‘That’s good for tourism. But we don’t actually see them or associate with them. That’s not good for tourism.’ He delivered his words in a mocking tone and Shannon laughed, completely charmed.

  By the time Shannon and Sean noticed Billie missing and chased her up, she was halfway through digging a grave.

  ‘I would have helped you with that,’ Sean advised her, as he and Shannon came to a stop close by.

  ‘Love waits for no one.’ Billie stopped and served the pair a peculiar smile.

  ‘You’re right.’ Sean climbed into the pit to take over the chore. ‘Katlin will be eager to be reunited with great-uncle Tim, no doubt.’

  Who said I was talking about Katlin and Tim, Billie wanted to say, but she managed to bite her tongue. ‘All yours.’ She handed over the shovel and climbed out of the pit to stand beside Shannon. ‘I just love to watch a man work, don’t you?’

  Shannon served Billie an evil eye and a jab in the ribs with her elbow for the comment; she knew what Billie was trying to imply. ‘I’ll get Katlin.’ Shannon headed off back to the car to avoid any other embarrassing remarks Billie might have in store.

  Sure, Sean was attractive, with his windswept looks and enchanting conversation, but it was hardly like they had a chance in hell of forming a relationship. He was a farmer, living on the other side of the world. Shannon had worked damned hard to carve a name for herself in the Australian film industry and she would be leaving Ireland in a few days to return to that promising career. Why was Billie even bothering to try and play cupid?

  ‘This really sucks, Katlin,’ Shannon grouched as she pulled the bag of bones from the back seat of the car rather roughly. ‘Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for a man I relate to this well? And he bloody well lives as far from me as humanly possible.’ Shannon suddenly realised she was complaining about the same lot in life that Katlin had endured, and Shannon had only been heartbroken for an hour or so. ‘Sorry, Kat. My problems pale against yours, I know. Still, pretty soon, my friend, you’re not going to have a worry in the world.’

  It was coming on to evening when Katlin was finally laid to rest, and her three saviours stood around staring at the grave as if expecting the dead woman to arise from the earth and thank them for their efforts.

  ‘Well,’ Shannon broke the silence. ‘I feel I should say a few words, since Katlin has been denied a decent burial until now.’ She glanced at Sean and smiled in appreciation. He could have been really difficult about this, untrusting and sceptical, but instead he’d been a prince. ‘No one I have ever known is more deserving of happiness than the woman who has brought us here today. May Katlin’s triumph of faith and her will to succeed, in this instance, bring her much fortune in her next life. May her love for this man, Timothy O’Mally, endure and be realised for many lifetimes to come.’

  ‘Amen,’ Billie seconded in the best ‘spiritual’ voice she could muster.

  ‘Amen,’ Sean echoed in a thick Irish brogue, his eyes fixed on Shannon.

  In his deep blue eyes Shannon saw his feelings of empathy; her good deed for his family had touched him it seemed. His attraction to her plain for her to see, Shannon’s heart did a backflip into her throat.

  ‘Stay for dinner?’ he asked Shannon, although Sean’s gaze shifted to Billie to let her know she was invited as well.

  ‘I’d love to,’ Billie answered on her own behalf, as she began to back up toward the entrance to the tiny cemetery. ‘Hopefully, I’ll be back in time.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Shannon struggled to keep the surprise and anxiousness out of her tone.

  ‘I wanted to check out a couple of things in town,’ Billie replied and Shannon did not query this, knowing her friend was just using the excuse to make herself scarce. ‘I’ll catch you guys later.’

  Shannon waved. What else could she do without making her friend’s matchmaking attempt seem even more obvious?

  ‘I can see why my great-uncle referred to you two as fiery angels.’ Sean came to stand beside Shannon, and they watched Billie stride toward the hire car. ‘She’s really something.’

  Shannon looked at Sean a little too quickly. She suddenly feared that perhaps she was the one who should have been making herself absent and her feelings must have been reflected in her face. When Shannon’s eyes met his, Sean smiled. ‘I’ve never met a woman who was so tough and yet so sensitive to the feelings of others.’

  ‘Katlin’s feelings, you mean?’ Shannon gulped, her heart sinking in her chest. Sean sounded in awe of her friend.

  Sean simply shook his head and the smile didn’t leave his face as he headed off toward the house.

  Shannon frowned, momentarily perplexed. ‘Great-uncle Tim’s feelings?’ she second-guessed before getting her hopes up.

  Again Sean shook his head in the negative, without altering his course.

  Shannon’s smile grew broad; she couldn’t help it. Sean was talking about his own feelings; the feelings he held for her. Oh God. She swallowed hard to supress tears of elation. If he was her elusive true love, the perfect mate she’d been searching for, why did their future seem so impossible? How could creation be so cruel?

  Shannon turned to Katlin’s grave and noted that some flowers were needed, yet there weren’t any in sight that she could pick. ‘I suppose you had no way of knowing that this might happen,’ Shannon made the statement sound more like a question, ‘but you could have warned me good looks, charm and intelligence ran in the family.’ She whispered her frustrations, even though Sean was halfway to the house and well out of earshot.

  Why, thank you.

  Shannon felt a chill prickle the hairs on the back of her neck for the male voice was resounding inside her own head. She raised her eyes from the dirt and slowly looked about her.

  In the last few glimmers of daylight that fell through a patch of trees and into the cemetery grounds she spied the vague outline of a young couple. Shannon recognised Katlin, but it was the man hugged close to her side who spoke.

  Folks say the family resemblance between myself and my grandnephew is uncanny.

  Shannon looked closer at the white, ghostly impression of the man set inside the golden rays of light to see a fellow who did mirror Sean’s characteristics in many respects. ‘The resemblance is uncanny,’ she granted, before her focus shifted to Katlin. ‘Does all fare well with you now?’

  Katlin smiled and nodded as she gave Tim a squeeze.

  When Katlin remained silent Shannon feared the woman’s tongue had not been returned to her as hoped, but she did not want to raise the sad issue just to satisfy her curiosity.

  I owe you more than I can ever repay.

  Shannon started to smile — this was a woman’s voice she heard in her mind now. It was an accent much like her own, only it was enriched with an Irish inflection.

  I know how to rid Heartley House of its namesake.

  ‘Really?’ Shannon was stoked, ‘Katlin, we would be so grateful for that information.’

  Three things you must do and in this order.

  Shannon nodded, clearing her head of the crowd of questions she wanted to ask to be sure to get the instructions right.

  Firstly, you must drain the pool.

  ‘Drain the pool? Why?’

  Heartley’s violent death created for him a porthole between the land of the dead and the
land of the living, through which he can project his restless spirit into the physical world and affect it. But the vortex is in the water itself … without water the porthole ceases to exist.

  ‘You know how your husband died then?’ Shannon hated to interrupt but her curiosity got the better of her.

  It was my appearance at the poolside that caused his massive heart attack, Katlin confessed, with a cool smile of satisfaction. I watched with great pleasure as he drowned in the construction that he treasured more than any living soul. The smile slipped from her face. I didn’t realise that by facilitating his death and my revenge that I would be unleashing his horrid spirit on to the property to which my soul was bound. My marriage in death with him proved far longer and more torturous than our living days of hellish matrimony.

  The whole story only made Shannon feel like a heel for her query. ‘Please forgive my morbid cur —’

  You deserve to know what you have been party to. I feel that I’ve been punished for my part in this sordid affair and have now been rewarded with a new start. She looked into the eyes of her true love a moment, before looking back to Shannon. I forgive Heartley for his wrongs against me for I have no desire to inflict the same grief on him in the next life. That is why this next instruction is so important.

  Shannon could tell Katlin wanted to say more about her life, but the daylight was fast fading and so were the apparitions; thus they had to stick with the topic most pressing. ‘I am listening.’

  Heartley’s grave, which is on the property, must be fenced in and blessed by a priest.

  Or a good psychic will also know the procedure for containing a spirit within a desired area, Timothy added.

  But I wish Heartley to have flowers and kind wishes recited over his grave to speed his spirit on the way to its next life and free him from any karmic entanglements with me.

  ‘But he was a complete prick!’ Shannon couldn’t believe the woman’s compassion.

  No, my friend, he was and still is a lost spirit, Katlin corrected. But he, like me, can find peace and go on to more beneficial pursuits.

  ‘If that is what you wish, Katlin, then it will be so,’ Shannon vowed, eyebrows raised as she pondered what nice things she could possibly dream up to say about Heartley. ‘And what was the third requirement for Heartley’s peaceful rest?’