by Brian Mercer
My third-floor sitting room was in a quiet back corner of the immense old house, in a spacious octagonal-shaped turret. The interior walls were stacked high with white bookcases; the exterior walls covered with windows overlooking the back and side gardens and an ancient-looking forest barren of leaves. There had been a charming fire in the fireplace that brightened and warmed the comfortable space with inviting armchairs and sofas. The furnishings were feminine without being frilly. I liked everything about it.
More than how the place looked was how it felt that was so reassuring: calm and peaceful yet alive with its own sense of life. I still picked up impressions from the people and things around me. I still saw auras and heard voices — Jenny's mostly — and all this threatened at times to swallow me whole. Yet somehow here at Waltham it would be safe to feel these things; here it was okay if not expected. Here I'd have help from people who understood.
But it didn't take away the fact that in the morning before dawn Mom would be on her way back to the airport and, by the end of the day, on a plane bound for New York. Without thinking about it, I started gnawing on my ponytail.
The door to the outer hall banged open and in burst Sara Barrett, my pretty, fourteen-year-old roommate. "Have you seen a little rabbit in here? I'm certain I saw a little grey bunny go thumping down the corridor in this direction." Her eyes were wide, her excitement infectious.
Mom and I giggled in spite of the downer mood. I realized my hair was in my mouth and quietly spit it out.
"No bunnies that we saw," Mom answered without a beat, "but I might have seen a fox dash into the bathroom just now."
"Oh, I'm serious," Sara exclaimed, waving away Mom's lame joke. "I know what I saw." She opened the door to the right, the one leading to our shared bedroom, and disappeared, hot on the trail of her rabbit.
Sara's was the one face besides Sir Alex's that I knew. We'd met earlier this afternoon, shortly after Mom and I arrived. Sara had given us a tour of the sitting room and the two bedrooms attached to it, the first to be Sara’s and my bedroom, the second for roommates who hadn't arrived yet. The three of us sat on the window seat in the corner turret, looking out at the rain while Sara pointed out landmarks, describing everything in a rapid British accent with hardly a pause for breath. There were the stables where Sir Alex kept ponies and horses, the groundskeepers' quarters where the gardeners slept, and the kennels where Sir Alex bred prizewinning basset hounds, beagles, and English foxhounds.
Sara was a relative of Sir Alex. She referred to him as her uncle and had visited Waltham annually for family parties and had even spent a few summers here. She seemed to know the house and the property well and was eager to share her insider's knowledge. I have to admit, it was nice to have a friend who knew her way around.
It felt like all the drama that had taken place in my life over the last year had somehow led to Waltham Academy. I knew from the moment I'd spotted Sir Alex lurking in the back of Mrs. Hawkley's psychic reading party, unknowable and unreadable, that something important was going on. Mom must have thought so, too, because after the reading, she’d been happy to meet with the medium and Sir Alex in a back room together.
The psychic session had just ended and the attendees were leaving Mrs. Hawkley's house. Outside, car doors opened and closed, engines started, and headlights turned on. Mrs. Hawkley's place had grown very quiet and still.
Gwen stared across at me with a shell-shocked look, and not just from the dramatic events of the psychic reading. Even when Gwen had been arranging it, she'd had a premonition that attending Mrs. Hawkley's party was somehow important for my future. Now that it was really happening, I recognized the dazed look in her eye. It was an expression that I got myself all the time these days when the surreal became real.
"Shall we get started?" Mrs. Hawkley had walked into the room, having said goodnight to her guests. "I want you to meet Sir Alexander Bray," she continued when we were all seated around a coffee table circa 1963. "He runs a school for young people with talents..." She hesitated. "With talents like Catalina's."
Catalina, the medium from the night's session, still glassy-eyed from her recent multiple readings, had smiled but said nothing.
Mrs. Hawkley scooted to the edge of her chair and patted me on the knee. "Dear, Gwen mentioned that you've been having some experiences. She didn't go into detail but said that you'd had some sort of accident and after that you were able to, mmm, pick up information that other people couldn't detect. Have I got that right?"
"Mostly," I'd answered.
"Becky," Catalina said after the awkward silence, "when I was a young girl in Poland I came very close to drowning. After that I could hear and see things others couldn't. It was one of the most frightening times of my life. People in the little town where I lived thought I was possessed of evil spirits. It was very difficult for my family and me. I was only eight years old.
"Eventually, my family and I had to move and go into hiding. We were living in a little town on the border of East Germany it was in those days, when Sir Alex found me and arranged for me to attend his school. I'm quite certain he saved my life.
"Becky, if what you're going through is anything like what happened to me, you must think you're going mad. I know I was going half-mad by the time Sir Alex found me. I guess what I'm trying to say, er, that is, what I feel I'm supposed to tell you is that you're not alone. What I mean is, the things you're feeling and experiencing have been felt and experienced by others. People have gone through it and not only survived but thrived. It really will be all right."
I'd felt the tears from Mom's recent reunion with Great Nana Mary start to flow again. I felt a thrill of relief and, for the first time in months, hope.
Mom had been nursing a large wad of mascara-stained tissues. "What is this school exactly?" she asked.
"Permit me to answer that, if it's acceptable," Sir Alex responded in his crisp British accent. He edged forward in his chair, propping his hands on his silver-tipped cane. "Waltham Academy for Spiritual Sensitives is a school for people with the gift of Aftersight."
"After what?" Mom asked.
"Aftersight, ma'am. It's the ability, simply put, to see, hear, smell, or otherwise perceive aspects of the afterlife. There is a part of us that goes on living after our physical bodies shut down and cease to function. And it is part of that existence which sensitives like Catalina and Becky here can tune into, if they wish. And sometimes even if they don't wish."
"Becky has some issues as a result of brain trauma," Mom replied. "Her doctors are treating her—"
"Doctors can't turn off what's been turned on, Mrs. Reynalds," Sir Alex cut in. "At best they can medicate her with drugs that will dilute her consciousness. Catalina's right, these things can drive you mad. It's a vicious cycle. I've seen it. I've seen what it can do. At some point you lose the ability to ascertain whether the voices are a result of the madness or the madness is a result of the voices."
"And what would you know about it?" Mom had quipped. "You're not a doctor."
"Oh, but I am, ma'am," Sir Alex replied. "I've been a licensed medical practitioner since just after the war. But it's not that from which I derive my knowledge. It's experience.
"For example, I see that young Becky here isn't wearing a wristwatch. Could this be because, soon after she begins wearing one, it stops working? Take it off and after a few days it begins to work again on its own?"
Gwen and I exchanged knowing glances.
"Did you know," Sir Alex had gone on, "that it's not uncommon for this sort of thing to happen after one has had a near-death experience? Something is altered in the magnetic field of the energy body after these experiences that seems to affect the mechanics of the wristwatch. At least, that is what I suspect.
"Don't look so astonished," he added, looking at me and Gwen. "This is what I do, this is what I've done for a very, very long time. It's sort of an old family business. The important thing isn't what I can guess or what I surmise, it's what I know.
It's how I can help."
And help was just what I needed. My life had been deteriorating for months, despite medication and therapy. Mom and Dad hadn't checked me into a psychiatric hospital yet, but that eventuality couldn’t be far away.
What had followed were a series of meetings between Sir Alex and my parents, culminating in a trip to England for a tour of Waltham Manor. I'd stayed behind at Gwen's house during the week between Christmas and New Year's, trying to keep my head together until they got back. I was hopeful yet afraid; afraid to move forward, afraid to stay where I was. If Sir Alex and Waltham could give me a way to filter the whirlwind of garbage that threatened to drive me over the edge, it was worth leaving everything and everyone to make that happen. I needed answers. I needed help.
I kept thinking of the poised and articulate Catalina standing in Mrs. Hawkley's living room, translating messages from deceased loved ones to grateful family and friends. I hadn't just seen the grief Catalina had eased, I'd felt it. If I can help people the way Catalina helped them, maybe I can put whatever is happening to me to good use.
Someone knocked at the door. Two uniformed manservants entered bearing suitcases for the empty bedroom off the parlor. Our roommates had arrived.
My stomach clenched. I'd met about as many new people as I could stand for one day. But these weren't just any new people. The girls that were about to walk through the door would shape my life over the weeks and months to come.
"Are they here?" Sara asked, bolting into the sitting room. She had changed into grey pants, a black cardigan, and a chunky pearl necklace. This had been her third outfit swap since we'd been introduced a few hours ago.
A pair of maids walked in and headed for the newly opened bedroom door to unpack the new girls' things, while the manservants went to work drawing the parlor curtains and stoking the fire. The blaze expanded to fill the room with a soft orange light by the time the first girl arrived.
She was tall, slender and nicely dressed. Her long auburn hair mirrored the fire, glimmering in velvety shades of scarlet and gold. Her sleepy eyes took in the room, the people, and brightened. "Hi, y'all," she said with a disarming smile. "I'm Nicole."
My insides softened. Like so much of the information that came to me uninvited, it was less like learning and more like remembering, the way dream memories sometimes bubble to the surface. Nicole projected kindliness, warmth, a sense that you weren't meeting someone new but reuniting with an old friend. Something loosened in my chest. Beside me the unseen Jenny whispered, "See, it's going to be all right."
Then a second girl walked in and whatever it was inside me that had relaxed suddenly hardened. This second girl was shorter, her energy rawer. The room stewards turned on the lamps, giving me a better view of her. She had dark, almost black hair, which fell straight and shoulder-length around her head like a hood. She wore a pink sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers, and a silver lip ring. From the damage to her heavy black eye makeup, it seemed she'd been recently crying.
"Do I know you?" I blurted before she even had time to say hello.
Taken aback, she quickly took in the faces around her, before resting her shadowed eyes on me.
"Um, no," she answered, "I don't think so."
But I knew it wasn't true. I'd seen this girl before, though I didn't know from where. My heart seemed to collapse in on itself and my stomach summersaulted into my boots. Sweat coated my palms and a shiver traced up my back.
Maybe things wouldn't be all right after all.
Chapter Thirteen
Becky
Waltham Manor
January 28
"Quiet! You'll wake 'er up."
"Don't be daft. She can't 'ear us."
"That's the fing. She can 'ear us!"
I opened my eyes and squinted into the shadows of my bedroom. "Hello? Is anyone there?"
I glanced over at Sara in the bed across the room. She was asleep, curled on her side with an old orange tabby tucked in the crook of her arm that reminded me of a short-haired version of Max. The cat peered back at me, opening and closing his green eyes drowsily. No one else was in the room.
A wan blue light pooled on the carpet before the uncurtained window. I got out of bed and squinted outside at the steadily falling rain. I had hazy memories of pushing open the heavy blue drapes to look outside late the night before. When I'd finally put head to pillow, I'd fallen asleep hard, only to wake two hours later as if ready for a new day to start. After that I lay awake for hours, trying and failing to lose consciousness until just before dawn, when I slipped into a serene, uncaring sleep.
Now I had to pee, my stomach ached hungrily, and I was caught somewhere between deep coma and hyper-alert wakefulness. It was going to be a while before my body adjusted to British time.
The chill morning air cut into my flannel pajamas with cold metal teeth. The old painted-over radiators could only do so much to heat the high-ceilinged room. I rushed into the en suite bathroom to relieve myself, before moving into the shared sitting room, hoping to find something leftover from last night's dinner.
Just what I was afraid of. Housekeeping staff had cleared away the table. They'd also recently rekindled the fire. It blazed with the soothing pop of embers, warming the cozy parlor to a comfortable temperature. I reclined on the couch and drew the throw draped across it over my lap. For several minutes I drowsed, looking out at the grey sky through the room's abundance of windows and listening to the gentle trickle of rain washing down the outside drain spouts. I admired the colorful flowers sprouting from the blue and white vase in the corner, wondering about the hothouse that produced them. Was it nearby? On the property?
Floorboards creaked overhead. Footsteps. I wasn't the only one awake, it seemed. Our upstairs neighbors must be adjusting to their own time changes. They had been quite boisterous the night before, pounding and thumping up there as if rearranging the furniture to their liking.
"New students most likely," Sara had explained the night before, our dinner having been interrupted by several loud thuds. "Everyone from our class just arrived this afternoon."
"Sounds like they're having a party up there," Mom had noted. "And we weren't invited."
"We'll meet them soon enough," Sara went on. "Tomorrow before luncheon, in the upstairs parlor. All our classmates are getting together."
"Upstairs parlor. Which upstairs parlor?" Cali, the dark-haired girl with too much eye makeup, asked. "I think that's all I've seen since we got here." Something about her dark energy still made me tremble.
"If you'd like, I can show you around tomorrow," Sara had offered. "We'll be in the south parlor. I know the way."
Except for Sara, we had all been exhausted from our travels. We'd been provided a private dinner in our sitting room by the familiar uniformed waitstaff. I'd eaten in enough fancy New York restaurants to recognize fine French cuisine when I saw it, even if I couldn't name each dish. It was the first meal I'd tasted in months that had any flavor. I'd noticed Mom's approving looks as I refilled my plate for seconds and then thirds.
During the meal, we’d taken turns introducing ourselves. I'd gone first, mostly so I could relax and listen to the others without having to sit nervously and wait my turn. I told them about the car accident, my mysterious new artistic talent, my ability to see and read other people's energy, and my strange relationship with a spirit voice that called herself Jenny. I'd left out the fact that I was hearing other voices, too, not wanting to freak out Mom, who still didn't know there was more than one.
Nicole, who had been born with many of the same abilities as mine, had immediately put me at ease. Unlike me, her power to perceive spirits seemed to be more seeing than hearing. She'd talked about it in such a matter-of-fact way that I started to think of the abilities as something completely natural, like being born with pretty hair or a slender body, two qualities that Nicole had also been blessed with. I liked her outlook on the phenomena. She looked at them as gifts, a way to help people. She didn't seem to care if other
people understood or believed in them, as long as she herself did.
Sara was a doll, with her young woman's body and the energy and innocence of a child. Despite being four years younger than the rest of us, she was the most familiar with Waltham Manor, Sir Alexander Bray, and the academy. I could have listened to her all night as she recounted her life leading up to her fall from horseback and the sudden onset of her new talent: the ability to communicate with animals, especially pets, even if the pets had passed on.
When I'd heard Cali's story about her brother's death, her parents' separation, and her father's descent into drugs and depression, I'd felt sorry. Maybe my first negative impressions of her had been because I felt the trauma she was carrying from watching her family implode. I'd felt that pain, had seen it in her aura like dark clouds gathering at her shoulders. Yet that wasn't quite it, either. Something hard to define about Cali still made me uneasy, something that I couldn't figure out, even with my new intuitive abilities.
When everyone was done, there was a lull in the dinner conversation. For a full minute we'd sat in silence and listened to the logs in the fireplace crumble, the rain and wind outside, and the occasional thump and thud from our upstairs housemates. Mom reached under the table and squeezed my hand. I smiled without looking at her. I was going to miss her so much, yet I could barely contain my excitement. Friends! I'm going to have friends again! Real, honest-to-goodness friends.
"Cali, what's that on your face?" Sara asked, pointing to her own temple to show what she meant. "Is it makeup?"
Cali blushed. "These black spots? No, they're moles. Birthmarks, I guess."
