Aftersight

by Brian Mercer

  I approached him, careful to skirt the dogs assembled around him.

  He gestured for me to sit back down. "No, no. It's for you. Please take a look."

  I perched myself at the edge of the burgundy leather chair and opened the folder. In it lay various newspaper clippings dating from over a year ago. I read the first, "The seven-year-old girl found hanged in her bedroom closet last week has been identified as Jennifer Clarke of Surrey. After a thorough investigation, officials have ruled out the likelihood of foul play. Clarke, who for several days had been despondent as a result of the death of a family pet, was found in her closet by her mother, Rose, with a cord wrapped around her neck—" I snapped the folder closed. "I don't want to read anymore."

  Sir Alex pointed at the file. "In the back there's a photograph that you need to see."

  "But I don't—"

  "Take heart. It is nothing gruesome. Please, trust me."

  I peeled away the back pages, wary now of its contents. There I found a picture of a familiar face. It was a face I'd drawn, sketched and painted many times. A face that I'd seen again and again in my dreams. "Oh. Jenny. My Jenny." My tears fell on the glossy photo.

  "You see," Sir Alex explained, "I think Jenny hasn't fully integrated into the afterlife, to her rightful home, because she's got a message she wants to convey to her family, who have been through much suffering. And of all the people in the world she could have chosen to help her, she's chosen you.

  "I've been doing this a great many years and in that time I've stopped believing in coincidence. I don't believe these powers of yours, these talents that you've brought back with you from the ether, are merely an accident."

  A flash from my near-death experience brightened somewhere inside me. I remembered the kindly old grandpa-like guide who had shown me around, the one who'd told me that I had to go back to my Earth-life a little longer, that I'd promised to do something before I'd been born, something that was supposed to help a lot of people. Was this what he'd meant?

  The thought of that kindly old man made me think of Sir Alex. I hadn't thought about it before, but I'd somehow equated that old man with Sir Alex. They shared the same kind of energy. They certainly felt the same. It was impossible but...

  "Is shutting all this off really what you want to do?" Sir Alex asked.

  "No. I think I understand now."

  "Good girl. Now, there's much for you to learn and that is best done with a good night's sleep. Very soon everything will make sense to you. You will find that sometimes the quickest path toward healing yourself is by first healing others."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Becky

  North Lawn, Waltham Manor

  April 10

  I glanced up at the turret in the manor house's northwest corner as Sara, Nicole, Cali and I made our way back from the stables. The white curtains in our third floor sitting room were parted slightly, as if someone inside was watching us as we moved across the lawn. Before we'd left that morning, Sara had opened a few windows, hoping to freshen up the room. What I'd seen was probably just a faint spring breeze swaying the curtains, yet I couldn't push out a sense of watchfulness, as if something from the shadows inside the room was looking back at us.

  I could see now what had been impossible to understand last February, when the weather had confined us all indoors. Obviously, our rooms were on the topmost habitable level of the house. There was no way that the noises from upstairs could be rationally explained. If we'd only known then what we knew now.

  "Sara, when do you think the trails will be dry enough for us to take the horses out for a full day's ride?" Cali asked.

  "I should expect in about another fortnight, if the weather cooperates," said Sara.

  "Look who's Annie Oakley all of a sudden," Nicole giggled, tickling Cali. "Looks like you turned out to be a pretty good cowgirl after all."

  Cali put her arm around Nicole and another around me. "It's all in the horse, my friends, it's all in the horse. Maestro knows what he's doing, not me. But that seems to be enough." Horseback riding made Cali cheerful and whimsical. Today we'd ridden on our own as far as a small pond at the edge of thick woods that looked mysterious and other-worldly, as if a doorway to some mysterious parallel world might be discovered there. "I'm sick of being on a leash. I gotta check out those trails."

  I smiled, putting my arm around Cali in return and my other around Sara, relieved that Cali didn't seem to be mad at me for the makeup that had mysteriously found its way into Sara and my bathroom. Together we made our way up to our rooms to change out of our muddy riding clothes. On our way upstairs, I told a horse joke that incited tearful laughter. We were all still in a good mood when we passed through the threshold of our sitting room, but then the atmosphere instantly darkened.

  "What the—?" Cali said, moving to the reading chair where I'd left my sweater. "What did I tell you about this? I don't know what kind of maid service you had back in Connecticut, but I'm not your maid!" She heaved my sweater into my bedroom, marched into her own room and slammed the door.

  "I'm so sick of this," I muttered, then louder, so Cali could hear, "I'm sick of it!"

  Sara and Nicole looked at each other awkwardly. "Have you ever noticed how we never seem to get into a row anywhere else but in here?" Sara asked. "All can be fine one minute, then we walk in here and suddenly there's shrieking and tears." She pulled off her coat and began moving about the sitting room, picking up the clothes and books she'd left there that morning. Although they outnumbered my things by six-to-one, Cali had chosen to ignore them.

  I'd noticed the increased bickering, the heightened tension between us, but it had been offset by three times as many good experiences in class, at the stables, and at mealtimes. The four of us seemed to genuinely love and respect each other, but that didn't stop us from fighting at night, once we returned to our rooms.

  Over the past few weeks, the paranormal activity in our secluded corner suite had tapered off completely. The unexplained noises that haunted us our first weeks at Waltham had never returned and even the strange moving about of our things had stopped as soon as we became aware of it. This sudden uptick in the squabbling that took place in our rooms seemed at first just a coincidence, a result of too many girls spending too much time together, but now I wasn't so sure.

  "Have you noticed any other kind of funny business goin' on around here?" Nicole asked. "Anything else that might clue us in that our ghostly friend might be back?"

  Sara pursed her lips and skewed them to one side. "No, not that I can think of." She began pulling off her boots. "No, wait. There is one thing that's a little bit odd. I haven't mentioned it because it sounds very strange, and I've no proof that it's anything unnatural, but on several occasions I've seen a little grey bunny wandering around Waltham. He looks very real and solid and I haven't any reason to think he's anything other than an escaped pet or something. But I've never been able to catch up with him. He always seems to disappear before I corner him. It started the night you girls arrived at Waltham and I've seen him perhaps a half-dozen times around the house. Do you think it has anything to do with what's happening in here?"

  "I dunno," Nicole answered, "but next time you see it, let me or one of the other girls know. It wouldn't hurt to keep our ears to the ground, you know, just in case."

  Chapter Twenty

  Cali

  Waltham Manor

  April 13

  "Cali? Cali? Wake up, sugar."

  I opened my eyes in the dark, momentarily disoriented and confused. I'd been dreaming that I'd been lying awake in my bedroom back in Sacramento and that something had been standing in the shadows near my closet, watching me. I hadn't seen anybody, but I'd felt its presence as surely as if moonlight had outlined its silhouette in ink. I remembered lying there, too scared to move, wanting but unable to cry for help. Of course, I hoped it was my brother, Chris, come back for a visit in spirit form, but some part of me knew different. Something was out there. Something dar
k.

  Nicole pushed her lips into my ear. "Stay very, very quiet."

  She pulled down my covers, took my hand, and urged me into a seated position. Normally it was too dark to see this late, but tonight enough moonlight seeped past the curtains to make black shapes of the furniture.

  "Follow me. And whatever you do, don't make a sound."

  I slid out of bed and stood unsteadily, putting a hand on Nicole's shoulder for balance. Together, we moved across the floor, around the bed, and into our shared bathroom. By the time we were standing in front of the sink, I could make out the barest outline of her wild spirally hair, ruffled from a half-night's sleep. My heart was hammering, in part from my recent dream, in part from Nicole. Her hands were trembling and her breath came out in ragged gasps.

  "Listen," she whispered.

  I waited, trying to still my own irregular breathing. "I don't hear any—"

  "Wait. Just wait. It'll start up in—"

  Now I heard it, the muffled sound of the piano from beyond the wall that separated our private suite from the parlor next door. Someone was getting in a little late-night piano practice. But who would be playing at this time of night? We had the north part of Waltham pretty much all to ourselves.

  "That song," Nicole said in a barely a whisper. "That's Claude Debussy's 'Clair de Lune.' It was a favorite of Momma's, something she used to play at night just after she put me to bed."

  The music was quiet, subdued, sad. There was a longing about whoever was playing it. Steadily, it grew louder, then faster.

  Nicole sniffed. I put my hand against her face and felt wet, hot tears.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I think... it seems like... I think that's my momma's playin'. That's the way she plays it. The pauses are in all the same places, just like Momma."

  "No way."

  "You don't think... this is the third time it's played. You don't think that the racket upstairs. The bric-a-brac that's been movin' around in here. You don't think that maybe it's Momma tryin' to get in touch with me, tryin' to get my attention?"

  "I don't know."

  She took a deep breath and let it out with a shaky exhale, the way little kids sound when they're just getting over a cry.

  "I gotta go out there and check. I gotta make sure." She took my hand and nearly crushed it. "I'm so scared. Please. Please come with me."

  I nodded in the dark. "Yeah. Yeah, of course." I squeezed back.

  We fumbled out into our bedroom. I had a robe somewhere but when I stopped to look for it, Nicole said, "No. There's no time. The song's maybe five minutes long. We have to get out there before it ends."

  She opened the door to our darkened sitting room and disappeared into the shadows. I followed behind her before I lost my nerve. Adrenaline was pumping through my body so fast that my legs went numb and when I crossed the darkened space, I seemed to be floating.

  The music had faded to the barest echo but it rose in volume again when Nicole unlatched the door to the outer hallway. I half-expected the sound to cut off when we slipped into the corridor, but as we moved ahead through the gloom, it continued, clearer than ever. I had to force myself to keep up with her. As we neared the wide parlor door, I felt like a kid on Christmas night, hearing Santa Claus out in the family room yet too scared to have a look.

  We paused at the door that opened to the parlor. There could be no mistake that it was the piano playing and not a recording. The music trembled the air the way that only live music could.

  The second she looked around the corner the music cut off. But it had been there. I could still faintly hear the soft echo of piano strings humming in the dark. She took my hand and only then did I realize how bad I was shaking. The room was empty.

  "Momma?" she croaked.

  Then I smelled it, a puff of perfume. It was a fragrance that reminded me of Nicole, though I'd never smelled her wearing this particular scent.

  "Southern Nights," Nicole explained shakily. "It was an old fragrance Momma used to wear. It was Daddy's favorite."

  That's when we saw it cross the room, a dark shape that detached itself from the wall and glided across the bank of windows to temporarily block out the moonlight. It moved as if in slow motion, bleeding darkness behind it like ashy smoke. I knew immediately that this thing wasn't Nicole's mother. This was something that was trying to deceive her, something trying to draw out the raw emotions she still felt from her lost parents.

  The thing, whatever it was, had used Nicole's heartache to lure us here, had used our fear to grow stronger. Whatever had made the noises in the attic, whatever had moved around the objects in our rooms and caused us to turn on each other, had revealed itself at last.

  ****

  Becky shivered. "Are you sure it wasn't your mom? Are you positive?"

  Nicole and I had woken Sara and Becky and told them what had happened. We were in their room, safely locked away. No chance we were going out there again. Not tonight.

  "I swear, this wasn't Momma."

  "What are we gonna do?" Becky asked. "We gotta tell Sir Alex. Mrs. Apple at least."

  "I say we get new rooms," I suggested. "I've had enough of this flippin' horror show."

  "Don't you remember what Ravi said?" asked Sara, petting Sebastian, who seemed oblivious that anything was wrong. "Exchanging rooms won't help. Whatever it is will only follow us."

  "Well," I added, "it couldn't hurt,"

  "Y'all calm down. I gotta think." Nicole massaged her temples. "Let me see if I can't dial up Charlie. He usually steps in at moments like this." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Okay, Charlie, whatta we do?"

  After a full minute of silence, Becky asked, "Well, what's he say?"

  Nicole grimaced. "He says that this has to do with a part of our paths as spirits. He said that what's happenin' isn't by chance, that it's somethin' we're supposed to experience."

  "That doesn't tell us a thing," I said.

  Nicole opened her eyes. "He isn't gonna tell us what to do. That's for us to decide."

  We agreed to report it to Mrs. Apple the next day, but Mrs. Apple was called away before Meditation ended and in the daylight, surrounded by our classmates, the sighting seemed less sinister. On top of that, the dark cloud that had settled over our rooms, whatever had caused us to start bickering whenever we were there, seemed to have lifted. For the time being.

  Instead of telling Mrs. Apple, Becky related the encounter to Ravi, who followed us back to our isolated corner of the manor house to check it out for himself. First, he made us take him to the parlor where Nicole and I had the sighting, then he went back to our place to meditate for several minutes. "Whatever was here visiting you I am seeing has departed," he said at last.

  "It's gone?" asked Becky. "Are you sure?"

  He shrugged as if to say, What do I know?

  "Why would it make all this fuss and just leave?" Nicole asked. "It doesn’t make any sense."

  "Maybe it has accomplished whatever it is coming here to do," Ravi suggested.

  "Okay," I said. "Now what?"

  "Watch and wait," Ravi answered. "If it is coming back, it will be back. But I think you are safe. For now, at least."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Becky

  Waltham Manor

  April 16

  I rummaged through my bureau, found my sketch book, and packed it away in the picnic basket. This had been our first day in England that might be considered reasonably warm and the girls and I were eager to get out and enjoy it. There were no afternoon classes on Saturdays and it seemed that everyone at Waltham Academy was planning some sort of outing. For us it was a hamper full of food and drinks on the southwest lawn.

  Sara invited Nigel to come with us, as well as Sam, one of Sir Alex's favorite foxhounds. I considered asking Jean Paul to go with us, too, but Malina had been shadowing him like a bodyguard, so I was happy enough to wave to him from across the garden. It was just as well, because I was anxious to try sketching again and I didn'
t think I'd be able to make the old magic happen if Jean Paul was there making me feel self-conscious.

  I hadn't attempted to create any new artwork since I'd arrived at Waltham. At Orientation, Mrs. Apple had shared her story about the beginning of her mediumistic abilities, when she described a phenomenon she referred to as "automatic writing," where the pen in her hand started to write as if of its own accord. The first time this happened, Mrs. Apple's aunt came through with a message. That sounded so much like what happened when I sketched and painted, I’d gotten nervous that spirits were taking over my body and wanted nothing more to do with it.

  Then last week I finally approached Mrs. Apple privately about it. With an arched eyebrow, she'd asked me to demonstrate the ability and the next night found me in Mrs. Apple's study, sketching what I'd hoped would be a likeness of her fruit bowl. Since I didn't have conscious control over the process, I was never sure what the finished product might be.

  Thankfully, it was a bowl of fruit that stared back at me once I came out of that dreamy, artistic fog. Mrs. Apple examined it for a long time, then studied me, her bright red lips pursed contemplatively. Finally, she said, "Noo, this is no' somethin' foreign comin' into ya. Noo, indeed. This'd be a talent that ya've had before."

  "Before what?"

  Mrs. Apple narrowed her eyes, as if pondering how much to say. "Ya've lived before, Becky Reynalds. Ya've had other lifetimes on the Earth. You might no' remember 'em, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen. Talent's ya've had before stay with ya, even though ya might no' be usin' 'em. Whatever happened during that auto accident o'yours, ya've tapped into your Higher Self. You're operatin' on a level far higher than ya can consciously access when ya're fully awake. That's why ya don't seem to be fully in control when ya're paintin'. Some higher aspect of your consciousness is takin' over."