by Jay Brandon
can you be sure it’s a ghost you’ve seen?”
The minister gave Michael a penetrating look for a moment, maybe having a glimpse into his true motive. “You can’t,” he said quietly. “Not always. They don’t all walk through walls, or turn see-through in the sunlight. Some accounts say they look as human as you or me.”
“Oh,” Michael said, disappointed.
“But there are clues. Sometimes it’s very cold in the presence of a ghost. A few people have said that when they were in a ghostly presence they felt very peaceful. Whatever the creature said seemed like the most sensible thing these people had ever heard. The ghost had an enveloping cloud of empathy, you might say.”
“Like a spell?”
“An enchantment,” Reverend Holyroyd said quietly, sounding wistful that he’d never experienced such the feeling himself, or perhaps that he’d never been able to project such charisma.
Back inside the church, Michael and Reverend Holroyd took leave of each other warmly, and the minister went off swinging his tennis racquet, calling out an invitation to drop in again. Michael never heard the church door close, he was that quickly immersed in the minister’s ghostly library.
The room was small and crowded and musty, with no window, but
he didn’t feel confined, because he wasn’t there. He was with the Duc d’Orleans in 1618, watching a pale ancestor come through the wall. He was in a dank way station of the Underground Railroad in 1853, where a cabin full of escaping slaves were saved from imminent discovery when their pursuers’ hounds suddenly went crazy, baying and whimpering and fleeing in terror from the sight of a lynched freedman, coming toward them with open hands, the rope still around his neck and a penetrating light emanating from his eyes. He was in a house in Philadelphia that no one could abide for long because its doors opened and dresser drawers flew across the room, all propelled by a child who was long-dead but too young to realize it, and was frustrated by her futile attempts to play with the new children.
There was, as Reverend Holroyd had hinted, a great deal of similarity in the tales of ghostly appearances, spread over centuries: too many correlations for coincidence, in Michael’s prejudiced opinion. Many observers reported becoming very tired or depressed in the presence of a ghost, often coupled with difficulty moving. His skin tingled, and he turned so that his back was no longer to the door of the room. Descriptions of ghosts bore a commonality, too. Ghosts were nearly always described as being very pale – “corpselike pallor” was how most commentators put this quality – but not transparent: pale, solid-looking creatures who could sometimes walk through walls. People who hadn’t actually seen ghosts but lived in haunted houses described feeling as though they were being watched, even feeling the light touch of a hand or a cold embrace. The sound of footsteps fading away was also frequently mentioned.
From reports of sightings Michael passed to theories. What was it that kept some spirits earthbound, while the great majority of the dead passed on to whatever destination? There was general agreement on this point too. Powerful emotion. Often ghosts seemed to pass through their haunted places oblivious to human affairs, but the spirits were there for a reason. Human emotions kept them confined to the human plane. Ghosts hated.
Or they longed. They demanded revenge, or justice. (Murder victims were great candidates for ghosthood.) They had some unfinished business that would not let them leave the living behind.
Michael no longer felt only sudden chills. In the sunless confines of the little room the gathering silence seemed to refrigerate the air, leaving him constantly chilled. His fingers felt stiff as he turned the pages.
Am I going mad? Kathy wondered. She was in a shop decorated like a beachcomber’s shack, but the store was big, with long aisles and quiet corners. In her hand was a pink conch shell, its hollow side enclosed by a plastic dome, like a snow globe, but this wasn’t a snow globe, it was a sand globe. Inside was a tiny thatched hut, a native girl in a hula skirt, and a dopey-looking surfer in a fringed hat and baggy shorts. When she shook the globe the brown particles at the characters’ feet swirled around in a miniature sandstorm before settling to the “beach” again.
And Kathy was standing there thinking, Isn’t that cute? and actually thinking about buying the damned thing. Finding a place for it in her own home. She put the shell back down on the shelf, thinking she realized now how people who owned homes at the coast came to lose their decorating sensibilities.
This store seemed intent on being all things to all potential consumers. From fake-rustic, pseudo-weather-beaten signs with homey sayings like, “Come on in, we can always use more sand,” one could turn the corner and run into a rack of post cards featuring three bathing beauties in thong bikinis, lying with their backs to the camera so they looked like a display of produce. That one, of course, said, “Sun your buns on the Texas coast.”
This was the fourth such store Kathy had visited, and she suddenly realized she had done them all to death. The sayings were the same, the T-shirts, the souvenirs. She’d made purchases, but now she didn’t even
want to look into her shopping bags, afraid she would find evidence that she had indeed lost whatever taste she’d brought on this vacation. She had, after all, just been seriously contemplating the sand globe.
Shopping produced its own unconscious state, in which objects replaced thoughts and momentary desires consumed larger pursuits. That was the good thing about shopping. When Kathy dropped suddenly out of that pleasant state, she found herself looking around the store in sudden worry, wondering why she was here. Not just in the store, but here in Port Aransas. Was she crazy?
She continued down the aisle, hoping to regain the shopping mode. But now the objects seemed not just silly but faintly sinister. Teak- backscratchers? Shark Christmas tree ornaments? You’d have to be under a spell to buy some of this crap.
There was another reason Kathy was afraid to look in her bags. She couldn’t remember if, in her daze, she had bought souvenirs thinking of Michael, or . . . Jack Leffler. Memories of the night before filled her mind. It seemed impossible – strange and impossible.
A time or two she’d even thought she’d seen him: fleeting glimpses that
shimmered away as soon as she turned her head but remained imprinted on her mind’s canvas, growing more vivid as she tried to ignore them. Jack. Always smiling at her, an intimate smile intended only for her.
For months, longer even, Kathy had felt a part of her was slipping away. Now, suddenly, inexplicably, she was emerging – emerging as some shelled creature might emerge from its shell. Was it a coincidence that this emergence was occurring now? And where would she be after emerging? Would she take up where she left off ? Or was she emerging to begin an entirely new life?
The thought frightened her. Suddenly she wanted Michael very badly. Wanted to touch him, be touched by him, hear his voice. And just then something did touch her, but it wasn’t Michael. She turned. It was the boy who had flirted with her at the Family Center. He wore one of those
sleeveless shirts called muscle shirts or wife beaters.
“Hey Babe,” he said. “Remember me?” He laughed at his line, and Kathy could tell he’d been drinking. There was more laughter behind her, and she saw there were three of them. All young males. All drunk. She looked to the store personnel for support, but they chatted lazily with each other at the cash register. Besides, she thought, she could handle them. She tried to move toward the front of the store, but muscle boy stepped in front of her.
“We’re going to a party,” he said. “How ‘bout coming with us?”
“No thanks,” she said, abandoning her idea of buying a trinket, and again trying to maneuver her way to the door. His hand slipped from her shoulder down to her breast.
“Stop,” she said.
“Wooo,” said one of his companions in mock fear. “I bet she’s a frisky
one.”
“Save some for me,” said the third one.
Kathy look
ed around, suddenly startled as if she’d been standing lost
in a daze for hours while the shop had closed its doors and everyone else had gone home. But no, the overhead lights still burned, the clerks still chatted lazily with each other at the cash register. Outside the sun was bright, momentarily breaking through the clouds. If she could reach the parking lot. If she could reach the sun . . .
“These boys bothering you?” said a voice.
She looked up. A brown uniform. A badge. A mustache.
For some reason she shook her head, as if to say I don’t know. She was lost. “Well, they’re bothering me,” the officer asserted.
The boys were backing away.
“I catch you bothering anybody, anytime, anyway, anyhow, I’m gonna lock up your sorry asses, but only after I’ve kicked ’em up and down this island. You understand me, boys?”
“Yes, yeah.”
“That’s yes, sir, officer, sir.” “Yes sir, officer sir.”
“Now apologize to this nice lady.”
Kathy started to protest, but he repeated his instruction. “We’re uh . . . sorry, Ma’am.”
“All right,” said the officer. “Now make yourselves scarce.”
And they did, hurrying out to the street where their friends were
waiting in a pickup truck.
He turned to the young clerks at the front of the store. “Now you girls call me a bit sooner next time, ya hear.”
“Okay, Bill,” they said, giggling nervously. “Yes, Bill.” “Whatever you say Bill.”
He walked Kathy out to the Subaru, opened the door for her.
“You okay, Ma’am?”
“Yes, thank you so much.”
“That’s my job, Ma’am,” he said. “I’m Officer Cates, Bill Cates.” He handed her the little sand globe with a little girl dancing in a hula skirt. “Compliments of the girls behind the counter,” he said.
Kathy backed out of the parking lot into the street. The island was so tiny anyway, that was one of its charms. The library was only a few blocks away.
Not all of Reverend Holroyd’s books agreed that ghosts could haunt only their homes or their death places. Some shades travelled to the nearby homes of relatives, houses the ghosts had known well in life. But there was that other ancient stricture, the one Holroyd had mentioned lightheartedly, like an old joke: ghosts can’t cross water. Die on an island and the island will be your spirit’s home forever.
That was the good news. The disturbing idea Michael gleaned from his search through the Reverend’s library, one that hadn’t occurred to him before, was that some ghosts had demonstrated the ability to change
shapes, to return in more pleasing guises. American Indians had legends of evil spirits that appeared to the living in the form of a beloved departed, in order to lure the live lover into hell, or the Indian version of hell. Michael also came across a few stories of sinisterly-intentioned ghosts who appeared in the form of more trusted dead ones to gain the trust of the living. Why not? Ghosts were only manifestations of a formless spirit anyway.
While mulling the possibilities, he continued to pursue one ghost question after another through all the volumes in the small library. A ghost was too individualistic in its concerns, in the obsession that had kept it on the human plane of existence, to team up with other spirits. Michael no longer believed with certainty in the dangers Jack had warned him against.
God. He stood up suddenly, glancing at his watch. He realized it was late in the day. The little room had no window, it had been gloomy all along, but Michael could sense the darkening of the day outside.
No, it was all right. His watch said two o’clock. He’d hardly been here any time yet. Lost in his researches, he must have felt time sliding away from him more quickly than it was. He sat down again and picked up another book, but then just sat with it in his hand, listening. He didn’t hear the sound of footsteps fading away, or the clank of ghostly chains. He didn’t hear anything; that was what disturbed him. The walls of the old church weren’t so thick that he shouldn’t have heard passing traffic. Nor was there any sound from within the building. Where was that janitor Reverend Holroyd had mentioned? He hadn’t once come by the room where Michael was studying.
He had a sudden urge to drop one of the books on the floor, to see if it would make a sound. He looked again at his watch. Still two o’clock. Boy, was he jumpy. Time wasn’t passing at all.
He peered more closely at the hands of his watch. They weren’t
moving. One, two, three, Michael counted slowly in his head, while his wristwatch’s second hand lay like a dead thing. Then as he stared the hand began moving again, jerked into life.
But he no longer believed it. He stood again and hurried out of the room, down the dim, narrow hallway to the minister’s office, looking for a clock. He didn’t trust what his cell phone might say any more than he did his watch, now. He turned on the light in the study, but in his hasty survey of the room he didn’t see any timepieces.
He decided it was time to leave anyway. On his way out of the study he turned off its light again, and when he stepped into the hallway it was pitch black. The light in the study must have made his eyes unaccustomed to the hall’s relative obscurity. But no, it was darker than it had been. There was no light now from the little room where he had been studying.
Michael turned in that direction, but the darkness seemed to have deepened. To have thickened. The darkness itself seemed to impede his progress as he groped down the hallway looking for the doorway of the study and its wall light switch. He must have passed the door in the darkness. He wasn’t sure how far he had gone. His steps slowed. He put out his hands but had a sudden queasiness about touching the wall, afraid it had grown fur and springy projections like the wall of a funhouse. Or would be slimy to the touch: mildewed with age, or with the moss that grows underwater. He was no longer sure he was in the church. He was being herded down a passageway to obscurity.
His restlessly reaching hands suddenly struck something solid. He drew back in alarm, but realized belatedly there had been nothing unearthly in the contact. It was a door. He groped for the doorknob, turned it, and found to his relief that he was in the church sanctuary. He looked back the way he had come. The hall was still dim, but not pitch black as it had seemed a moment ago. It wasn’t light from the sanctuary filling the hall, because the chapel too was barely lit. Puzzled, somewhat relieved but still alarmed, Michael closed the hall door firmly behind him.
The ceiling of the sanctuary soared above his head. He was at the
front, near the altar. To his left, on the platform, was the minister’s pulpit, made of polished blonde wood carved in simple but strong lines. Even unoccupied, the pulpit was reassuring. When Michael took another few steps he could see on the wall at the back of the platform a cross, twenty feet tall. No image of Jesus was nailed to it, but the sturdy, simple symbol also helped calm him. He took deeper breaths. In the lost terrain of the hallway he’d felt hollowed out with panic, but now he felt himself filling in again.
The sanctuary was empty. The empty pews looked attentive, turned without distraction toward the pulpit. There was a wide central aisle down the church, hardwood floor softened by a strip of red carpet. He felt a subconscious embarrassment about walking on it, an outsider intruding into the place of worship. Instead he started down the narrower aisle next to the wall, touching each pew back as he passed it, drawing strength from the unflappable wood. The air in the chapel wasn’t cold, it was what one would expect in Port Aransas in early September, warm and muggy.
Michael glanced out the window beside him, wondering if the gloomy day had brightened, but the window was stained glass, he couldn’t read the light coming through it. He ran his hand across the colored glass, bumping his fingers over the veins of lead. He wanted to touch everything. Most of all he wanted to find Kathy and touch her. He wondered what time it really was. Would Kathy already be at the public library?
Guiltily, he pulled h
is hand back from the stained glass window and stopped bumping the pews with his other hand. He had a creepy feeling he was being watched. After Reverend Holroyd’s kindness, Michael didn’t want the janitor or the deacon to find him treating their chapel less than respectfully.
But when he turned his head toward the center aisle of the church it was slowly, and silently, not with any apology rising to his lips, because in that brief moment of turning he realized what he was about to see. He stopped walking.
Jack Leffler was paralleling him down the center aisle, coming from the same direction. Now Jack wore a white shirt, as if he’d dressed up for church, and dark trousers.
Jack’s face didn’t fall into the casual grin Michael remembered from their earlier encounters. He stared solemnly at Michael, as if their surroundings had seeped into his spirit.
Michael started walking again as did Jack, and when he stopped Jack stopped as well; Jack was stalking Michael. Jack’s expression was not unfriendly, but Michael didn’t want to reach the end of the aisle and make the turn toward the front door of the church; toward Jack, or this thing that looked like Jack.
Michael wondered how sturdy the stained glass windows were. If he suddenly leaped backward, could he smash through one to the outside world?
The thing that looked like Jack stopped with its hands on the pew backs. Michael knew with utter certainty that the thing could appear beside him before Michael could take another step, and that the outside world wouldn’t frighten the apparition. Michael couldn’t escape it even if he could reach the door of the church.
“Jack,” Michael said as cheerfully as he could muster.
