Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set

by James M Matheson

  He stopped his practiced speech midsentence with that mild blasphemy. Katie wasn’t sure what was wrong at first, but she followed his gaze past her shoulder and then she knew.

  The brooch lying on the counter. His gaze was riveted to the brooch.

  At first, she thought that maybe he could feel some sort of evil emanating from it, the same way that Marlin McCandry and Riley had gotten a little jolt from touching it, or how she had fallen into that vision--or whatever it had been. He was a pastor, and men dedicated to God were supposed to be able to feel things like that more deeply.

  That wasn’t it though. This was something else for him. She saw it when the look in his eyes changes from surprise to recognition.

  “I haven’t seen that necklace in forever and a day,” he breathed. “Where on Earth did you find that?”

  He reached out for it, almost like he thought it would evaporate like a mirage if he got too close. He licked his lips. With a look at Katie, he silently asked permission to pick it up.

  Curious about what would happen, remembering her own experience, Katie stepped aside to let him pass.

  Sutter put one finger on the edge of the brooch.

  A green spark crackled between the metal and his skin with a loud snap, and he took a quick step back.

  And the lights went out.

  Chapter 5

  “More coffee?” Pastor Sutter asked Katie. His hands barely shook as he held the coffee pot out to pour more of the aromatic black drink into her cup. He liked his coffee strong, apparently.

  Or maybe, Katie thought, he just needed a jolt of caffeine to steady himself.

  After the fuse had blown at the Inn, plunging them into darkness, Riley had produced a flashlight from behind the check-in counter and quickly licked it to life. At the same time, he’d taken his little wooden cross out of his pocket. He held that up in his other hand like it was just as much protection from the dark as the flashlight.

  Katie had hers in her hand as well. When nothing attacked them, when nothing screamed “BOO” from the shadows, they snuck them back into their pockets before Pastor Sutter could see them.

  Sutter had invited Katie to come down to his little house situated behind the church. He didn’t say so, but Katie could tell he wasn’t comfortable standing in the Inn. The tremor in the floor, the lights...even the most spiritual mind would start to get ideas after that. Katie took Riley at his word that the lights going out was only the breaker, but she knew the timing was too much to be a coincidence.

  It was a short walk down to Sutter’s home, but neither of them said anything on the way. Once inside, the Pastor had gone right to the counter beside the sink and started the coffee. He had one cup drained before he could clear his throat and utter just one word.

  “Strange.”

  Riley had stayed behind to fix the power and manage the Inn. With their guests already coming out of their rooms and rushing downstairs to ask what in the world was going on, someone had to be there. She and Riley had promised everyone that everything was all right, just remain calm, nothing to see here.

  Of course, they immediately thought it was ghosts. Her Inn had a reputation. A very well deserved one.

  The guests had already taken their cellphones out as she was leaving, and Katie could already guess that it would be up on YouTube within the hour, labeled as “blackout at the haunted Inn” or some such thing. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  Thankfully, Riley had texted her to say the guests had given up on ghost hunting for the moment, and he was rebooting their computer system. Back to business as usual.

  He didn’t ask about the brooch, or about Pastor Sutter. He either knew she hadn’t had time to learn anything, or he didn’t want to know. At least, not yet. He’d given her a look when she wrapped the brooch up to come with her, but that was all. Sutter recognized the piece of jewelry. That meant he had answers.

  Now, sitting at the little round table in Sutter’s kitchen, Katie sipped her coffee and tried to convince herself that she wanted to know what the answers were.

  Even as a shiver crawled its way up her spine.

  “Pastor,” she prompted, “you seemed to recognize this brooch. I’m guessing that’s why you asked me over here, and not just because we both like coffee so much.”

  “No, no I can’t say as it was that.” He chuckled in a low bass rumble, but there was very little humor in it. “It surprised me, seeing that piece there at your Inn. I haven’t seen that particular necklace in, oh, many a year now. I don’t suppose...could I look at it again? Don’t need to take it. Just want to look at it and, you know, remember.”

  “I’m not sure that you’d want to take it, actually” she warned him. “It’s given a friend of mine a bit of trouble.”

  She reached into her pocket for the carefully wrapped, and maybe possessed item. Saying that it was giving Marlin “a bit of trouble” was like saying a bee sting only hurt a skosh.

  “One of your friends, you say?” Sutter asked her. “What friend is that?”

  “Marlin McCandry.”

  Pastor Sutter made a sour face as he accepted the bundle of handkerchief and jewelry from her open palm. Katie could tell that his reaction was less about the brooch and more about the man she had just mentioned.

  What could he possibly have against Marlin?

  After a moment, when he didn’t say anything more, Katie cleared her throat. “You know Marlin, right? He’s one of the more successful antique dealers here in town.”

  “We’ve met,” was all he said, in a tone so flat that it was easy to tell he was hiding something.

  Katie hadn’t heard anything about Marlin and Jim Sutter having problems. Pastor Sutter was friendly with everyone, liked by everyone, and Marlin...well, he was kind of the opposite, she supposed. Not that he was hated by everyone. No one had a bad word to say about him, but at the same time, no one had a good word to say about him, either. He was a neighbor, and nearly everyone in Twilight Ridge knew him, but come to think of it Katie didn’t believe he had many actual friends.

  Apparently, based on Sutter’s reaction just now, Marlin had at least one enemy.

  “Well,” he said suddenly, dismissing the matter of him and Sutter with a shrug. “Let’s have a look at this, I suppose.”

  He set it down on the table in front of him, pushing his coffee cup aside to make room as he undid the folded corners of the handkerchief. His smile returned as he saw the ivory carving of the woman again.

  Katie looked down at it too. As she did, she felt her forehead scrunch up. Something didn’t seem right about the brooch. It was the same brooch, obviously. It had to be. It had gone from Marlin’s hand to the Inn, and back to her hand to come here. Only...it looked different. Had the woman’s hands been higher before, closer to her neck? Had her smile been that mocking?

  She shook her head and set that silly thought aside. Of course, it had. It was carved in ivory. She was just letting herself get weirded out because here, again, was proof of the unnatural world all around them. It scared her, sometimes, to think that there were ghosts all around them, all the time, everywhere. Echoes of past lives, and of things gone wrong, and of dreams left unfulfilled.

  Sometimes she wondered if, when she died, her story would end there. Would she find herself pining away for eternity, her soul trapped in this world with no way out, or would she pass away peacefully and never be heard from again?

  Time would tell, she supposed. Hopefully not any time soon.

  Sutter’s deep brown eyes slowly tore themselves away from the brooch, and his gaze came up to find Katie’s gaze. “Heh. I suppose you’re wondering what makes this necklace so special to me.”

  “I was, to be sure. Um. I was also wondering why you keep calling it a necklace. It doesn’t have a chain. I thought it was a brooch? You know, like women used to wear on their blouses.”

  “Mmm. See why you might think that. Here. Look at this.”

  One big finger carefully tipped th
e brooch up from the top, showing off where a small hole had been worked into the edging around the oval metal backing.

  Katie held her breath as his finger came in contact with it, but this time there was no snap of electricity.

  “Used to have a nice gold chain on it,” he explained, “back when it belonged to my aunt Emmaline, that is. I suppose without the chain it could be used as a brooch. I suppose, anyway.”

  Katie blinked up at him. “What? Your aunt owned this?”

  “Of course! How else do you think I could recognize it, hmm? Back when this piece was made, jewelry was all made by hand. Every ivory carving came out unique. See here, the way the hair loops around the lady’s ear? Or the flow of her dress here? Oh yes. I remember this.”

  Katie was confused. “Marlin said this was part of an estate sale from New Hartford, and that it belonged to a family by the name of Norstrom. Supposedly there’s still a Norstrom here in Twilight Ridge who might be a relative. A Connor Norstrom.”

  “Sure enough,” Sutter agreed, nodding his large head. “That’s my aunt’s family.”

  “But your name is Sutter.”

  For some reason, that made him chuckle. “True. That’s true, but you know that families don’t all have the same name. People get married, start other branches, and soon your tree is going every which way.”

  “Okay, but does that mean you’re from Twilight Ridge? You’re related to Connor Norstrom?”

  “That’d be my cousin. I’m not from here, myself. Originally I’m from Connecticut, but having family here’s one of the reasons why I chose to move to this nice little town in the middle of nowhere. Oh, rebuilding the church and continuing God’s work was a part of it, to be sure, but really this was a return to my roots. Even though, technically, I’ve never set foot here before. Still feels like coming home to me.”

  Katie had an obvious question to ask, as she sat there looking at him and his dark, dark complexion. The woman in her vision had been pale skinned, with red hair, and if there was a resemblance to Jim Sutter there somewhere, she couldn’t see it. She just wasn’t sure how to put what she was thinking into words in a way that wouldn’t be insulting. “Um, Pastor Sutter...”

  “Jim,” he corrected her. “Call me Jim.”

  He’d asked her to do that before, but until now it had seemed inappropriate to call someone she barely knew by their first name. Especially a pastor. Now, considering the subject of their conversation, it definitely felt like a good time for first names.

  So. “Jim, I’ve lived here in Twilight Ridge for months and months now. I know just about everyone who lives here, even if it’s just to recognize their face in the corner store. I’ve never known any, er, you know. I’ve never known there to be any...”

  This time he broke out into thunderous laughter. “Oh, Katie, you can just go ahead and say it. Nothing racist about pointing out the obvious. There are no Black families living in Twilight Ridge. Not before me, anyways. That what you were going to say?”

  “Yes,” she said, still a little sheepishly. “I just thought the Norstroms would be a White family.”

  “They were,” Jim told her. “Still are. They’re good people even if they don’t have my ebony skin and rakish good looks. See, my aunt Emmaline fell in love with one of the Norstrom boys, and they got married, had a life together, the whole thing that men and women are supposed to do. She was happy in that life. Then, also like happens with all of God’s children, she died.”

  “Oh? How?”

  “Cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.” It seemed like the thing to say.

  “Mmm. We all were. I figure they’ll beat cancer one of these days, but for now, I still take the good people with the bad. Yes.” He seemed to consider that for a moment, pulling up old memories. “Everybody loved Aunt Emmaline. My side of the family, and the Norstroms too, and just everyone who knew her.” He shook his head, and turned the brooch over, touching it with a lot more confidence this time. “She always wore this. Always. Never took it off.”

  That piqued Katie’s curiosity to be sure. “Would she have been wearing it when she died?”

  Jim nodded sadly. “I’m sure she would have. My Momma gave that to her when they were both little girls. It had some special meaning for them that I never did figure out. Came from their grandmother, or something.”

  At her age, Katie had been to more funerals than she liked to think about. That was how she knew that people would often be buried with personal items of great sentimental value. Rings, a favorite shirt or baseball cap perhaps, even family photos. It surprised her, a little, to think that Emmaline wasn’t buried with this necklace considering how much it meant to her.

  Then again, here it was right in front of them, so obviously it hadn’t gone to the grave with her. Was that why it was haunted? Did it need to be buried with the owner of the spirit to find rest?

  Standing up from the table, Jim went over to a drawer in the cabinet next to the oven. From inside he took out several framed photos, shuffling them awkwardly until he came up with the one he wanted. It was an eight by ten, in a nice wooden frame.

  “This is her,” he said, bringing the picture over to Katie. “This is Emmaline Norstrom, born Emmaline Sutter until she married the love of her life. I haven’t had the chance to hang these yet. Just got back into town a few months back and I’ve been so busy rebuilding the congregation and all, but they’re all special to me, in one way or another. Emmaline was my favorite aunt. Miss her to pieces.”

  Katie looked down at the photo in its frame. She was struck by how beautiful Emmaline had been, and how happy she seemed. The picture had been taken outdoors, with the sun shining and the leaves on the trees a deep green color that spoke of the height of summer. It was a happy time. A time that was gone passed away just as surely as Emmaline Norstrom had passed away.

  The scenery wasn’t what she was most interested in, however. She looked at Emmaline’s face, and now she was sure. This was not the woman from her vision.

  She thought about what Jim had told her so far. The necklace, and his aunt, and how she had married as a Black woman into a White family in rural New England. He’d already said his family was from Connecticut originally and that explained how Marlin McCandry had found the brooch in an estate sale in New Hartford.

  But how did it end up in that sale in the first place?

  “Can I tell you something, Pastor Sutter?” she asked him. “I mean, without you thinking I’m crazy?”

  “Of course. Sure you can. Not thinking people are crazy is actually part of our training to become a pastor. Got a whole thing on it in Bible college and everything. But I told you, call me Jim.”

  “In this case, I think calling you Pastor is more appropriate.”

  With a deep breath, she told him her secret.

  He looked confused, at first, as she started telling him about what she had seen when she handled the brooch. The look went from confused to surprise, from surprise to silent disbelief, and then to something that was all of those, and something more.

  “I promise you,” she said defensively, “I’m not crazy. I have this ability to see things that other people can’t. Sometimes it’s like I’m watching a movie of someone else’s life. Sometimes it’s a horror flick. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t even really want it. This is just the way I am.”

  He held up a hand as she started to ramble. “Katie, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. No worries there. God makes each of us in His image, but that image takes lots of different forms. You look like you, I look like me, and we all reflect the one true God.”

  “So...you believe me?”

  He hesitated, but just for a minute. “I don’t have any reason to doubt that what you’re saying is true. You have to admit it’s a lot to take in. I’m sure you believe what you’re saying, but I’ve never had anyone tell me anything like this. Sitting where I’m sitting...I don’t see how it’s possible.”

  Katie sighed. This was pretty muc
h the response she had been expecting, but she had needed to tell him this deepest secret that she held if she was going to explain the vision. Jim just felt like someone she could trust. Besides, she needed his help. Unless they were going to do what Riley suggested and drop the brooch down a deep, dark hole, they needed information to find out what was going on.

  She was tired of being afraid, and of ghosts everywhere she turned, but she wasn’t the kind of person who ran from a problem. She hadn’t been like that since she was a young girl. She’d grown up quick, for lots of different reasons, but she couldn’t help being who she was. Like Jim had said, she could only look like herself.

  The piece of jewelry with its carved ivory woman had belonged to someone in Jim’s family. What she had seen--the woman with the red hair begging for help in that dimly lit hallway--somehow that directly linked to him. She needed him, and she needed to be honest with him in turn.

  “I need you to believe me,” she said, her voice steady even as her heart thumped in her chest. “I know you said you can’t see how it’s possible but I’m telling you, it’s true. I really do have these visions.”

  “No, no,” he said quietly. “Katie, I didn’t mean that. I meant I don’t see how it’s possible that you saw that woman in a vision.”

  “What?” Now it was her turn to be confused. “What about her?”

  “See, the way you describe her there’s no doubt in my mind. That’s my Aunt Emmaline’s daughter. That’s Amber Norstrom. Connor Norstrom’s sister.”

  Katie waited for him to say the rest of it, the part that she could see hiding behind his eyes.

  “She’s dead, Katie. She died nearly four months ago.”

  Chapter 6

  Katie had always liked going to bed at the end of a long day. Sleep was a way of unwinding and letting her mind sort through everything that life had thrown at her. Dreams helped ease her worries. She would wake up rested and ready to take on the world again.