by Becky Durfee
“The sad thing is she only meant to say so long,” Zack noted. “I’m sure she had no idea it was going to be goodbye.”
Jenny held up her hand to get him to stop talking. “Too sad to think about.”
She meant it.
She got her own phone out of her purse and called Kyle. If anyone could determine Julia Ingram’s whereabouts—then and now—it would be him. After putting in a request to track her down, Jenny ended her call and returned her attention to the people at the picnic table. Devon was still wrapped up in his drawing, so Jenny casually said to the adults, “I noticed the use of the word I in his last statement.”
Kayla nodded. “He does that sometimes, and those are the moments that frighten me the most.”
“But it’s not always like that,” Jenny observed.
Shaking her head, Kayla added, “No…he often describes the situation like he’s an observer, but every once in a while he recounts it as if it’s his own memory—like M-a-t-t-h-e-w is doing the talking through him.”
Jenny respected Kayla’s desire to keep Devon in the dark by spelling.
Looking very serious, Kayla added, “Even his demeanor changes. You know as well as I do that he constantly runs around like a wild man—but when uses the word I, he has a maturity about him that makes me feel like it’s not even him in there.”
Jenny glanced down at the little boy who was wiggling while he drew and wondered exactly what he experienced when he had a contact. Did Devon temporarily stop existing within his own body? Had Matthew taken over somehow? She didn’t think Devon would be able to explain it, even if she asked. He would most likely need to mature quite a bit before he could describe what went on in that gifted little mind of his.
“Well, I’m hoping we’re on the right track to getting M-a-t-t-h-e-w the answers he’s looking for,” Jenny announced. “It seems he may just want to know where his wife is. If Kyle can track her down, maybe M-a-t-t-h-e-w will be satisfied and cross over.”
Kayla didn’t look appeased. “But what about next time? If he really does have this gift like you say he does, won’t this keep happening?”
Jenny considered the possibilities. Suppose Devon got contacted by somebody with more evil intentions? Considering he seemed to think—and even act—as if he was the spirit himself, would he have been susceptible to behaviors he otherwise wouldn’t engage in? Could he have ultimately found himself in a lot of trouble carrying out deeds that weren’t of his own doing?
Looking compassionately at Kayla, Jenny said, “I think you should get this little boy to a doctor…not for treatment, but rather for documentation…let someone know that sometimes he may not be acting under his own free will. If it makes you feel any better, I’d be willing to talk to his doctor and explain the situation. I have the names of a few law enforcement officers who can testify to the validity of my gift—hopefully that will give me credibility when I attest to Devon’s psychic ability.” She smiled before adding, “It’s probably best to have this on record before anything becomes an issue. It’ll be a much harder sell if you try to convince people of his ability afterward.”
“After what?” Kayla asked with a look of concern.
Jenny didn’t know how to answer that; suddenly she wished she hadn’t said anything at all. “After anything that comes his way.”
Mercifully, Zack interjected, “I’ve done a little math…if our deceased friend was thirty-nine in 1961, then he was born in 1922, give or take, depending on when his birthday fell. Now, if convention dictates, his wife was probably around the same age, so that would mean she’s in her nineties now—if she’s even still alive.”
“If she’s not,” Jenny noted, “that might give M-a-t-t-h-e-w the incentive to cross over. If he wants to find her, he needs to look on the other side.”
“Do you think the spirits have a sense of time?” Kayla asked. “Does M-a-t-t-h-e-w even know he’s been gone for over 50 years? Or do you think it all feels like yesterday to him?”
Jenny reflected back to her other cases. “I’m pretty sure they do have a sense of time, or at least some of them do. My first case involved a man who knew his teenage girlfriend,” she said with finger quotes, “was currently in her eighties in a nursing home. His spirit had hovered around her throughout her life, though, watching her grow old. While I’m not sure it felt like sixty years to him, I do believe he knew the time had passed.”
Devon wordlessly scooted himself off the picnic bench and started to run around the grassy area nearby. Kayla reached over and lifted up his picture, turning it toward herself. She lowered her eyebrows and shook her head with a loud sigh. “It breaks my heart to think about what he sees in his mind.”
She placed the picture down flat on the picnic table so Zack and Jenny could see it. While the details were difficult to discern, the flames were quite clear. Jenny didn’t respond, simply because she didn’t know what to say.
Zack seemed to remain in his own little world. “Do you think if we either introduced Devon to Julia—or else showed him her grave—Matthew would get the idea and move on?”
“Maybe,” Jenny replied. She raised her eyes to meet Kayla’s. “Is that something you’d be willing to do?”
She seemed to give the notion some thought. “I don’t really want to bring my five-year-old to a cemetery, but if that’s what it takes to get Matthew to be on his merry way, I am fully on board with the idea.” Tears looked as if they were on their way to the surface. “I’m willing to do anything to help my son.”
Unpacking their luggage for the second time in two days, Jenny and Zack made themselves comfortable in their new hotel room. This hotel was closer to the abandoned train station, the only place Jenny had been able to get an informative reading.
The sound of Jenny’s cell phone interrupted the unpacking. “Hello, Kyle.”
“Hello to you, Jenny.”
“Were you able to track down Julia Ingram?”
“I was,” Kyle announced, “but unfortunately you won’t be able to talk to her.”
Jenny had suspected this would be the answer she’d receive. “She passed away?”
“Back in 2005.”
“Okay, then, we go with plan B. Do you have any idea where she’s buried?”
“I do,” Kyle said. “She’s buried in Portland Cemetery in Harbor Falls, South Carolina.”
Jenny pursed her lips. “Huh,” she said as she contemplated the implications.
“What’s the matter?” Kyle asked.
“You had said Matthew was buried in Ohio…I wonder if that’s going to cause a problem.”
“Because they’re not together?”
“Exactly. Do you think maybe that’s why he’s been looking for her? He wants to be laid to rest next to her?”
“I don’t know,” Kyle said, “but he’s in for a double-whammy if that’s true. Not only isn’t Julia buried next to Matthew, but she is buried next to her second husband.”
Jenny grimaced. “Oh, dear.”
“I did find out one other thing for you. Julia and Matthew had a child—a daughter named Mary—who is still very much alive, although her married name is now Mary Walker.”
“How old is Mary?”
“Sixty-two. She’s living in Mason, South Carolina now.”
After a little math in her head, Jenny declared, “So she was about ten when the train accident happened?”
“Thereabouts.”
“I’m guessing she should remember her father, then,” Jenny deduced.
“Presumably.”
The wheels in Jenny’s mind were turning. “Do you happen to have her contact information?”
“Would I be the world’s best private investigator if I didn’t?”
Jenny couldn’t sleep. Her brain kept running through the conversation she would inevitably have with Mary Walker. Of all the strange phone calls she’d had to make, this one would certainly top the list. Hello, Ms. Walker…I have a five-year-old boy here who, at times, claims he is y
our deceased father. Even though Kayla was okay with the idea of Devon meeting Mary, would Mary be okay with that? And if Mary wasn’t going to agree to a meeting, what would Jenny do to convince Matthew to cross over? Bringing Devon to Portland Cemetery to see Julia’s grave could have actually done more harm than good considering it wasn’t next to Matthew. Would that have made him angry? If so, how would he react? Would that put Devon in danger?
Her thought process shifted gears to Julia’s decision to be buried next to her second husband as opposed to her first. She had died in 2005, which meant she was most likely in her eighties when she passed. If she had been in her thirties when she lost Matthew, that meant she could have spent more than half her life with her second husband. Had he really been the man she considered to be her life partner? Is that why she chose to be laid to rest with him as opposed to the man she only got to spend a short time with?
Jenny thought about what a difficult decision that must have been for Julia. She imagined herself in the same situation. Being buried with her first husband, Greg, was not even a remote option, but considering that marriage ended in divorce, nobody would have expected that. She and Greg didn’t even like each other, after all. But suppose—God forbid—she became widowed in the near future while her love for Zack was fully intact. Suppose she also met another man in a few years and spent four or five decades with him. Would she really go back and get buried next to Zack? Or would she stay next to the man with whom she’d grown old?
What a heartbreaking decision poor Julia had to make.
Returning to the matter at hand, Jenny forced her mind back to the issues concerning Matthew. What if he had gone to his grave assuming Julia would eventually be buried next to him? Was he still waiting for her? Was that why he said he was looking for her?
Was this why he lingered?
“None of this is doing any good,” Jenny said to herself in a frustrated whisper. “You need sleep.” She rolled clumsily onto her right side, bringing the pillow that rested between her legs with her. Soon after, she remembered her obstetrician’s advice to always sleep on her left side, so she reversed the process and resumed the same position she had tried to get out of before. A heavy sigh escaped her.
For a moment, she contemplated how desperate she was to lie face-down; she had always been a stomach sleeper, and she hadn’t been able to get in that position for several months now. She began to fantasize about finding a nice beach somewhere and digging a giant hole in the sand for her stomach to fit in; then she could lie face-down for hours and hours and hours...
Lovely thought, Jenny concluded, but not immediately helpful. She threw off the covers and put her feet on the floor, trudging across the room to the laptop that was charging on the dresser. Taking a seat in the only chair the hotel room had to offer, she opened the computer and began to do some research. If she wasn’t sleeping anyway, she figured she could at least make some use of her time.
After a few minutes of searching, she sat back in the chair and whispered, “Holy shit.”
Chapter 5
“Devon’s not alone,” Jenny told Zack over breakfast in the lobby. She was having a difficult time shaking her fatigue—a direct result of her inability to catch any decent sleep the night before. Nonetheless, she poked at her scrambled eggs and continued, “There are apparently other kids who have made similar claims. They have memories they simply shouldn’t have—they know things that a child their age shouldn’t know.”
“What kind of things?” Zack began to attack his plate, which was piled high with free food.
“Well, one article featured a kid who was three years old and knew how to fix a car,” Jenny began. “His father was changing his oil in the driveway, and the three-year-old came out and climbed up on the fender, pointing out to his father that the antifreeze was low. The father looked, and the antifreeze was low. The father asked how the child knew that, and the child replied that he had been stranded on the side of the road once because his car had overheated. He said that he’d let the antifreeze get low, and he vowed he’d never allow that to happen again. The father asked exactly when the three-year-old had been stranded on the side of the road with an overheated car, and the child said, That happened when I was Keith. Mind you, the child’s name wasn’t Keith.”
“Freaky,” Zack said.
“Indeed. The kid went on to describe a red Mustang convertible in vivid detail, using terms a child that age wouldn’t understand. Even I didn’t understand it when I read it last night…it was about horsepower and liters and rims and something that involved a V.” Jenny pointed at Zack with her fork. “And he talked about the exact intersection where he had died in a car wreck. When the dad did some research, it turned out a fatal accident involving a nineteen-year-old named Keith did happen there a few years before the child was born…and Keith had been driving a red Mustang convertible when the accident happened. ”
“You think this kid was possessed by Keith’s sprit?”
Jenny took a sip of juice, wishing it had three coffees worth of caffeine. “They called it reincarnated in the article.” She made finger quotes. “But it sounds a lot like what is going on with Devon.”
“Maybe this kid had the gift but nobody knew it?”
With a shrug Jenny said, “Maybe. I honestly don’t know enough about that case to make a guess. What I did learn was that there was a doctor who had researched this case and several more like it. He came to the conclusion that something supernatural had to be going on. Kids, by nature, have vivid imaginations, but these children could recall facts—very specific facts about people’s lives…things they never should have known.”
“Maybe you can put Kayla into contact with that kid’s parents,” Zack noted. “It might make her feel better to know she isn’t alone.”
“That’s a good point. I was thinking I would actually try to contact the doctor who had studied these kids. I would feel a lot more comfortable if I talked with someone who was experienced with this before I did anything that involved Devon. We’re dealing with a child here. I would hate to handle this improperly and do something that would ultimately end up hurting him in the long run.”
“Smart move,” Zack said as he put a huge forkful of pancake in his mouth.
Even after all this time, Jenny still marveled at just how much that man could eat and stay so skinny. Maybe he had a tapeworm. Pushing that thought aside, she added, “I’ve already contacted Kyle, asking him to find the doctor’s information. It was the middle of the night, so I sent him an email instead of calling; at this point I’m just waiting for him to get back to me. I figured, in the meantime, I could contact Mary and drop this bomb on her…that can give her some time to get used to the idea before we introduce her to Devon—if, that is, she’s even willing to meet him.”
“I’d think she would be,” Zack said. “I’d be curious if some little boy claimed to be a deceased relative of mine.”
She cocked her eyebrow at him. “You’d be curious? I might be inclined to think that the person calling me was a loony making an outrageous—and completely fictitious—claim.”
Zack shrugged. “That too.”
“I guess there’s only one way to find out how she’ll react,” Jenny said with a sigh. She reluctantly pulled her phone out of her purse, looking at it motionlessly for a while; at times like this, her innocent little phone looked so intimidating. “Here goes nothing.”
“I’m not even sure how to tell you this,” Jenny said apprehensively, “but there’s a very young boy from North Carolina who keeps claiming his name is Matthew and he died in a fire. He led us to a desolate area in South Carolina, near Cumberland, stating that’s where the fire had taken place.” Jenny cleared her throat, hoping her message was being well received. “He was referring to the place where the train accident that claimed your father had occurred.”
The silence on the other end of the phone was deafening.
Jenny continued, “When the little boy speaks as Matthew, he cl
aims to be looking for his wife, Julia.” Jenny paused one more time before noting, “I believe that was your mother’s name.”
“It was,” Mary said softly. She added nothing more.
“I know this is strange,” Jenny said quickly and professionally, “and I’m sorry to spring this phone call on you…but this child’s mother actually contacted me to try to help her son. She was very concerned by her child’s behavior, for obvious reasons, and she wants some answers. Now that I know this Matthew really existed and was presumably your father, I would like to get some answers for you as well.”
Mary seemed confused. “And who are you again?”
“My name is Jenny Larrabee; I am a psychic from Tennessee.”
“A psychic from Tennessee,” she repeated with suspicion.
Jenny wanted to make sure she wasn’t overwhelming this poor woman. “I’m so sorry about this; I know this can’t be easy for you to hear. If you want I can call you back later once this has had a chance to sink in.”
“No,” Mary said, clearly still in shock. “I’m fine. I-I-I’d like to discuss this more, actually. You say it’s a little boy from North Carolina who claims to be my father?”
“Yes, ma’am. He is a five-year-old child with a very rare gift. He has the ability to receive messages from the deceased, but in my experiences, the spirits only bother to make contact if they have an unresolved issue.” Jenny cleared her throat again. “Like I said, Matthew has mentioned that he’s looking for his wife.”
“She passed away a few years ago,” Mary said.
“I know that,” Jenny replied, “but I don’t think your father knows that.”
Silence penetrated the phone.
“Mary, was your mother on the train that day?” Jenny asked. “It has occurred to me that he may be concerned for her safety on the day of the explosion.”
“She was,” Mary replied. “In fact, we both were, but we didn’t sit near my father. The train was nearly full, so he let my mother and I sit together in the back of the car, and he took one of the empty seats in the front.” Her tone became sad. “That’s where the explosion happened. That’s why he wasn’t able to get out but my mother and I were.”
