Search for the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  “Isn’t that something like what mediums do?” Rebecca said slyly, with a grin.

  “You know what? You’re right. They know how to play people, and they’re observant and watch reactions. But is that innate or learned?”

  “A little bit of both, sweetie. So, what’s for dinner?”

  Chapter 18

  Abby woke the next morning to hear a lot of noise coming from the kitchen downstairs. It wouldn’t be Ned creating that much clatter—he was very quiet. Therefore it had to be her mother. She wasn’t sure she was ready to face her mother yet.

  They’d had a nice dinner. Rebecca Kimball possessed a number of good qualities, including the ability to talk about anything, anytime, to anyone. Conversation never lagged when she was part of it—a trait that Abby had definitely not inherited. She took after her father, Marvin, who was always pleasant and affable, but who seldom spoke if not addressed directly, and who rarely initiated a conversation. He and Rebecca made a good, balanced pair, but Abby wasn’t sure if that boded well for Ned and her: they were both quiet people.

  They seemed to have arrived at an unspoken consensus the night before, that anything having to do with paranormal phenomena was bad for digestion, so they’d skirted around discussing anything remotely connected to psychics or ghosts or even unlikely coincidences. All very nice, and Abby had enjoyed watching her mother getting to know Ned better, on his own turf. Not that she was worried about her mother’s approval, but it was good that they could get past the formalities. Like she and Sarah had done, but that had been true from the moment they had met—kindred spirits recognizing each other without words.

  Once again she wondered why Samuel, her long-lost great-grandfather, hadn’t chosen to speak to Rebecca or even Abby herself. Rebecca might have been too closed off to recognize his message, through no fault of her own, but Abby would have welcomed it. After her initial surprise, of course. But why had Samuel chosen Christine as his conduit? Abby wanted to believe that Christine was sincere about her psychic abilities, but she hadn’t given up her day job. She was a pragmatist. And even she had been startled by Samuel’s unexpectedly reaching out to her. Christine and Abby had only just connected. Had Samuel been watching and waiting for the opportunity to pass on his apology? In a way that creeped her out—the idea that Samuel, and by implication a whole lot of other dead relatives, were hovering in the wings waiting for the right moment to break through to the living. Should she try to get Rebecca and Christine together and see what happened?

  No, she decided. She needed some one-on-one time with her mother. They hadn’t even processed what had happened on the Cape not long before. They both needed time to work through what they’d seen and heard and felt, and that would take more than a single day. It probably wasn’t a good idea to bring Ellie over either, right now. Grow up, Abby! Just talk with your mother.

  She threw on a ratty bathrobe, brushed her hair and her teeth, and meandered down to the kitchen, where her mother, as usual, was scrubbing at anything that looked at all like it might want scrubbing. Abby had long since given up apologizing for her less-than-perfect housecleaning habits. Right now she could hide behind the home renovation projects, which took up a lot of her time, but also generated a lot of dust and mess. She couldn’t win.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said as she dropped into her usual chair.

  “Good morning, sunshine! You want coffee?”

  “Please. Did you see Ned?”

  “I did. He left only a few minutes ago. What a lovely man he is!” Rebecca filled a mug and slid it in front of Abby.

  “I’m glad you think so,” Abby said, adding sugar before sipping.

  “You two are so lucky to have found each other,” Rebecca said, sitting down across from Abby with her own coffee.

  Abby contemplated that for a moment, while she let the caffeine do its work. If she hadn’t met Ned when she did . . . she might have decided that she’d just had a dizzy spell (although she’d never had one before), or that she was allergic to historic buildings. She might even had ended up marrying Brad—what an awful thought. He probably would have dumped her anyway, since she knew he’d been fooling around. But if Ned hadn’t been there to lend support, mostly in the form of distraction? She didn’t want to think about it.

  “Abby?” her mother said. Abby looked up to see Rebecca watching her with concern.

  “I’m fine, Mom. It just takes me a while to get started in the morning these days.”

  “As long as you’re all right. Was there anything you wanted to do today?”

  “I hadn’t really made any plans. You haven’t spent a lot of time in Massachusetts, sightseeing. Anything you want to see?”

  “Well, we are in the midst of a very historic part of the country and state. It would be a shame not to explore just a little. Unless you’d rather just talk?”

  “We can do both at once, Mom,” Abby said. She didn’t mention that this might be a great opportunity to conduct a little test: take Rebecca to places where Abby had seen less-than-living ancestors and see if Rebecca noticed.

  “All right, then!” Rebecca seemed pleased. “Where do we go?”

  “Well, the Battle Green is about a block from here, so we can look at that, and then we can follow the Battle Road to Concord, maybe have lunch at that Concord Inn there?”

  • • •

  An hour later, showered, dressed and each outfitted with comfortable walking shoes and an extra fleece jacket, Abby and Rebecca strolled over to the Battle Green, where Abby gave her mother the mini-history of that long-ago Revolutionary War confrontation. “The thing is, the patriots couldn’t see what was coming because there was a building at that end of the green, and it hid the road. So they could only imagine the British forces heading toward them. By almost anyone’s standards they were unprepared.”

  “How sad,” Rebecca said, her gaze sweeping across the currently empty space. “Did any of our people—you know, ancestors—fight here?”

  “Not that I’ve found, but I’m still pretty new at all this genealogy stuff. We did have ancestors who fought at Concord, and during the retreat. Ned’s family’s house lies right on that road.”

  “Does it feel odd, living in the middle of so much history?” Rebecca asked. “I don’t mean, do you see all those dead people, but so much important stuff happened right here. And the area seems so small, given the importance of what happened here.”

  “It does give you a different perspective on history,” Abby told her. “You ready to head over to Concord now?”

  “Sure, sweetie.”

  They went back to the house to get Abby’s car, then headed west toward Concord. The road took them past the museum, but neither commented on that. Rebecca knew the bare bones of the story, that Abby had been let go after some kind of conflict with her boss, but she hadn’t asked any probing questions. Abby pointed out Emerson’s house, then turned right on the road that led to the Battle Bridge, where she parked in the small lot.

  “So this is the ‘rude bridge that arched the flood’?” Rebecca asked.

  “A replica,” Abby replied, “but it’s in the right place.”

  Rebecca sighed. “Like I said, it all seems so small.”

  “It didn’t take many people to start a rebellion, Mom. And the time was ripe for it.”

  They wandered around the site, admiring the views, and Abby pointed out the Old Manse, where Nathaniel Hawthorne had lived for a time. “Do you want to go in?”

  Rebecca considered for a moment. “I don’t want to disappoint you, but I don’t think so. It’s such a nice day, and I’m enjoying being outside.”

  “Well, then, we could go over to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and visit him there, along with a number of his Concord friends. You’ve heard of Authors’ Ridge?”

  “I have. It always amazes me that all those people knew each other, and even spent time together. It must have been an interesting place in the eighteen hundreds.”

  “I know what you mean.” They dr
ove the scant mile back to the famous cemetery, and Abby found a parking space close to the gathered authors. “There are lots of interesting people buried here, Mom. Like Daniel Chester French, who made that Minute Man statue we just saw. Also the first woman who ever got a driver’s license in this country—only then her husband wouldn’t let her drive.”

  Rebecca laughed. “I can see you’ve been doing your homework!”

  “I guess so. Tell me, Mom—did I like cemeteries when I was a kid? I know I had friends who thought they were creepy. We all used to hold our breath when we drove by one. Don’t ask me why.” She could now speak from experience: you couldn’t inhale a ghost.

  “Shall we pay our respects? Who’s here?” Rebecca asked.

  “The Alcotts, the Thoreaus, the Hawthornes—although Nathaniel’s wife and child died in London, I believe, and it was only a few years ago that they were reunited here—and the Emersons.”

  “Oh, my! I can see I need to catch up on my reading. I always loved Little Women.”

  “We drove right by the house where Louisa May Alcott wrote it.”

  Rebecca seemed content to wander around, stopping now and then to decipher the writing on a tombstone. Abby did her best not to tip her hand: would her mother see anyone? The Reeds—or at least their burial plot—were right down the hill there, in plain sight. In addition to her great-grandmother’s chair, the tombstones in that plot had given Abby the strongest jolt among her early experiences. But that, like with the chair, had occurred only when she had touched them. Maybe she should think about luring her mother down there and shoving her into the stone. But she reminded herself that Rebecca had lived with the heirloom chair for decades and never noticed anything out of the ordinary.

  Abby sat down on a convenient bench halfway down the hill. Maybe this was a hopeless cause. Maybe whatever gene—if there was one—that produced this ability had skipped her mother altogether. But that didn’t seem right either. If Rebecca didn’t have it, she couldn’t have passed it on to Abby. That was the way heredity and DNA worked, as far as she knew. And Rebecca had seen Olivia. Maybe it took two different genes working together? But the same logic applied. If Rebecca didn’t have it, how could she? For the moment she refused to contemplate any solution other than a biological one, that could be studied and proved. And she and Ned shared ancestors and the ability, which had to mean something.

  Rebecca sat down beside her. “It’s lovely here, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Abby agreed.

  Rebecca looked out over the orderly rows of stones. “I don’t want to spoil the mood, dear, but was this some kind of test?”

  “You mean, was I testing you? I guess so.”

  “We aren’t connected to any of the famous authors, are we?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “So you want me to find someone else?”

  “Kind of. If you find them, it tells us something. If you don’t find them, it tells us something else. We’re trying to figure out how this works, and we don’t have many guinea pigs to work with. Do you mind?”

  “Well, I’ve had a chance to enjoy the place for itself, so I suppose we can get down to business. What is it you want me to do?”

  “Mom, I can’t tell you, because that would mess up the experiment. Just wander around some more and see what happens.”

  “Right,” Rebecca said dubiously. She headed off on a path parallel to the ridge. Abby stifled a laugh: Rebecca looked just a bit comic, reaching out her arms, palms down, as if trying to sense something, and occasionally patting a stone. Nothing much seemed to be happening, and Abby’s attention wandered to lunch, and how long Rebecca would stay, and whether Ned had talked to Kevin and set up a schedule yet . . .

  She realized after a time that she’d come close to falling asleep—the cemetery certainly was a peaceful place, and tourists seldom visited in the morning, midweek. She looked around to find Rebecca and spied her standing at the bottom of the hill—in front of the Reed plot. Rebecca looked up from the central tombstone and focused on Abby, her expression somber. And Abby felt a prickle of excitement.

  Chapter 19

  Abby made her way carefully down the hill—fallen leaves made the rough stone steps slippery. She came up beside Rebecca, and for a long moment they faced each other wordlessly. Finally Rebecca nodded toward the large stone. “This one.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes. Why do you know?”

  “Well, logically I recall that you’ve talked about the family name before, and I was paying attention. But that wasn’t it.”

  “And?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this. It felt like it was drawing me toward it. Okay, it’s the bottom of the hill, and it sure was easier to walk down the hill than up, but it wasn’t just that. And I couldn’t see the name from the back. You know who all these people are?”

  “Pretty much. That’s William Reed’s mother in the center there. She was the first burial here. We’re descended from her, and so is Ned, up the line. Have you touched the stone?”

  “Uh, no. It always seems kind of strange to me to be patting tombstones. They’re meant to be looked at, not hugged. So you think I should do it with this one?”

  “Try it,” Abby said, and stepped back, watching.

  Rebecca looked at Abby, then stepped up over the low stone curb that surrounded the plot. She reached out her hand and laid it on the main stone. After a few seconds she added her other hand, both planted firmly on the surface of the polished granite.

  Abby wrestled with conflicting emotions. She was worried that her mother might be upset if she felt something unexpected. She was worried that Rebecca wouldn’t feel anything, which would get them no closer to an answer. She wasn’t sure which outcome she was hoping for, but she kept her distance, to allow Rebecca to figure it out for herself.

  After what seemed like an eternity to Abby but which was probably no more than three minutes, Rebecca stepped away from the stone, and turned to Abby. “I see.”

  Abby’s first reaction was relief. “What did you see?”

  “Can we sit down? I need to sort this out in my head.”

  “Sure—right over there.” Abby pointed toward another bench, at the lowest part of the cemetery, and led her mother toward it.

  After they had sat silently for several minutes, Abby asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, dear. I’m not sure what I expected—maybe a thunderbolt or a flash of blue light, or maybe I’d find myself having a conversation with my great-grandmother over tea and cookies.”

  “But you didn’t get either one?” Abby asked.

  “No. I really wanted to feel something, for your sake, but part of me was still skeptical that anything would happen—or that I’d recognize it if it did. I thought maybe I was just ghost-blind.”

  “But you’re not? Mom, please just tell me—you’re driving me crazy.”

  Rebecca’s mouth twitched. “And it’s kind of fun, but not kind to you. The thing is, it’s hard to put into words. I didn’t see people or hear conversations, which I guess was what I expected. Or maybe I saw a lot of people and heard a lot of conversations that all ran together to create a kind of white noise. But there was something there. It wasn’t frightening. I don’t know if anyone could see me, but I felt welcome. I felt like I’d plugged into a part of something bigger, you know? The Reed Family continuum?”

  “I love that! It is a continuum, because there are so many generations involved. Of course they get muddled, if you take them in all at once.”

  “But that’s not what’s happened to you?”

  “No, I’ve always gotten them one at a time. Well, to be fair, here I did get a jumble. My theory is that it’s only the strong emotions that linger, and obviously a cemetery brings out a lot of strong emotion—grief, mainly—from a lot of people over an extended time. But with the chair, say, it was only one person, mourning for her child. She was alone.”

  �
��I’m not sure I want to go looking for that experience, even though it’s in the past. Why did I never get anything from the chair?”

  “I can’t really say. You weren’t ready for it? You certainly weren’t looking for it. What was it that inspired you to bring it to me, at that particular time?”

  “I guess I hoped that you and Brad would be starting a home of your own. I certainly got that wrong, didn’t I?”

  “In some ways. But the chair was a catalyst, if you want to call it that. It did something to me, but Brad thought I was malingering or something. He was anything but sympathetic. That hurt, and it made me look at him differently. Ned was the one who ‘got’ it. Who took me to cemeteries to meet the family, so to speak. He believed me.”

  “Well, I’m glad it was good for something. Look, I’m hungry. Can we go find a nice restaurant and talk about this?”

  “Of course. The Concord Inn’s right down the street.”

  They walked back to the car in silence. Abby took her own emotional temperature, and decided “relieved” was her main reaction, with a dash of “happy” thrown in. It would be nice to have someone else to talk to about this—someone who shared both her memories and her genes. Rebecca didn’t seem rattled by it, but she had been prepared for something to happen.

  Abby parked behind the restaurant and they went in, found a table, and settled themselves with menus. Once the waitress had taken their order, Rebecca said, “Well, what now?”

  “I’m not sure, Mom. We’re kind of operating on a case-by-case basis. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but if you decide you want to pursue it, we’ll help. You going to tell Dad?”

  “I haven’t really thought that far. We don’t keep secrets from each other, you know, but he’s not a terribly imaginative man. If I say I’m communicating with the dead, he’s likely to come back with something like, ‘That’s nice—did you enjoy it?’”