Old Acquaintance

by Terri Reid

  Stanley stood up and looked around the room, trying to place where the smell was coming from. He walked over to the door to make sure there wasn’t a leak somewhere that would need to be insulated. But the door was tight, no air seeping through.

  Walking over to the shelves where Rosie displayed a number of candles, he picked up each candle and sniffed. “Nothing but perfumey stuff in here,” he muttered as he went through several candles and didn’t find what he was looking for.

  Finally, he went into the kitchen to sniff around in there. He could smell the fragrance of the dishwashing soap and the counter cleaner, but nothing like the smell he’d encountered in the living room.

  He turned and, with a shrug, went back to the couch. The scent wasn’t quite as strong as earlier, but it still lingered in the room. He was about to sit back on the couch when he noticed a DVD sitting on the coffee table. The old, black and white, action movie was one of his favorites, and even though he’d seen it more than a dozen times, it always kept him on the edge of his seat.

  He picked it up and stared at it for a moment. He hadn’t watched the movie for several years, maybe even five or six years. Last he recalled, the movie was in a box of old DVDs he’d put down in the basement just before he’d married Rosie. How in the world did it get upstairs?

  Shrugging, he crossed the room, stuck the movie into the DVD player and settled himself in for two hours of pure enjoyment.

  As Stanley’s attention was drawn to the television screen, a shadowed figure paused next to the Christmas tree behind him. It froze for a long moment, then slowly faded away.

  Chapter Forty

  “Good morning.”

  Mary sat up quickly and saw Mike sitting in the small chair in her bedroom.

  “Mike! Is everything okay?” she asked frantically. “Bradley? Clarissa?”

  “They’re fine,” he said quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. They are just fine. Bradley is driving Clarissa to school for an early meeting, so I thought I’d take a minute to talk to you.”

  Mary glanced over at the clock on the nightstand. It was 7:30, and she sighed in relief. “I thought it was much later,” she said. “We stayed up until about two talking about the information we found.” She met his eyes. “This is unlike anything I’ve ever faced before.”

  Mike nodded. “I know,” he said. “And I’m trying to get more help because I think we’re going to need it.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel much better,” she admitted. “I really don’t like it when you’re worried.”

  “Well, I am, so be careful,” he said. “Be very careful.”

  He was silent for a few moments, and Mary studied him. “So?” she finally asked.

  “What?” he asked, trying to act innocent.

  “You would not have come here just to tell me to be careful,” she said. “You already said that last night. So…what?”

  He stood up and slowly glided back and forth. Then he stopped and sighed. “It’s probably nothing,” he began.

  “Then it will be no big deal if you tell me,” she urged.

  “Remember the first night?” he asked. “When you came downstairs and saw the shadow in the kitchen?”

  Mary nodded. “It’s a little fuzzy for some reason,” she said. “But I do remember it.”

  “Okay, you said you smelled something,” he prompted.

  Her eyes widened. “That’s right,” she said slowly. “It smelled like vanilla and…” She stopped and concentrated for a moment. “Pine trees. It smelled like pine trees.”

  “And even though you were a little freaked about seeing another shadow in the house, what did you do?” he asked.

  She looked at him in disbelief. “I went to bed,” she said slowly. “I turned around and went to bed.”

  “And slept like a rock as I recall,” he said with a slight smile.

  “Not just me,” she reminded him. “Bradley slept right through Ian knocking on the door.”

  “Which is highly unlike the big guy,” Mike said.

  “Totally unlike him,” she agreed. “He’s a very light sleeper—especially when he thinks we’re being threatened.”

  “So, last night I came downstairs to find Bradley in the kitchen, pretty worked up because he saw a shadow in there and none of the electronics had detected anything,” Mike said.

  “Nothing picked it up?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “And, I didn’t even sense it,” he admitted. “And he was not too happy with me.”

  “He didn’t get upset with you, did he?” she asked.

  “It was fine,” Mike said. “I would have done the same thing if I had been in his shoes.” Then he stopped for a moment and studied Mary. “Okay, let’s be honest here. The big guy was majorly pissed at me, at the electronics, at the whole situation. It was more a frustrated anger than anything else. And, like I said, I get it, totally.”

  “Then what happened?” Mary asked.

  Mike smiled and nodded. “Then he smelled something,” he said. “He asked me if I could smell it, and I explained that I didn’t come with a working sense of smell anymore. But he was even oblivious to my sparkly wit. He just kept sniffing the air and smiling. The anger was gone. The worry was gone. He apologized to me and then…”

  “Then?” Mary repeated.

  “Then he went to bed,” Mike said, perplexed. “After saying that he couldn’t trust any of the warning systems in the house, he just went to bed.”

  “He didn’t say he didn’t trust you, did he?” Mary asked.

  “Well, he was upset that I didn’t catch on that there was a bogey in the house,” Mike admitted. “And I don’t know why I didn’t catch it either. Flew right in under the radar.”

  “And then started crop dusting the ‘feel good and go to bed’ spray,” she added. “Right?”

  “Right,” he agreed, nodding. “I’d like to explain it, but I’ve got nothing.”

  “Do you think it’s Tony?” she asked.

  “Tony?”

  “Oh, okay. Sorry. Time to catch you up,” she said. “Tony Lancaster is the name of the boy who burnt the house down around his parents, who went to the asylum, who committed suicide there and then, somehow, was able to come back and burn up the people he didn’t really care for.”

  Mike stared at her for a long moment. “Holy crap,” he finally said. “That kid’s messed up!”

  “Yeah,” Mary agreed. “Tell me about it. But, more to the point, do you think Tony has the ability to disarm people, let them think there’s no problems and then attack?”

  Mike thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “The first time…Tony, right?” he asked. Mary nodded.

  “Okay, the first time Tony was in the house,” Mike continued, “I felt him. I felt him even before you called to me. I knew something threatening was on the premises.” He stopped for a moment and considered a few things. “Actually, I think I got a whiff of the threatening earlier in the evening when we were in the kitchen and you thought you saw something.”

  Mary nodded. “And he disappeared before you could zone in on anything substantial.”

  “Right,” Mike agreed. “Right. So, the spidey-sense is working for threatening spirits. And last night, I didn’t feel any threatening feelings at all.”

  “So, we’ve got another shadowy spirit hanging around the house?” Mary asked.

  “Looks like,” Mike replied.

  “Never a dull moment,” Mary said with a sigh, and then she smiled at him.

  Mike grinned. “Well, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”

  Her smile faltered, and she shook her head. “Not this dangerous,” she said, placing her hands protectively on her stomach. “Not this dangerous.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  The house was bright with morning sun when Rosie left her bedroom the next morning. Slipping on her robe as she walked down the hallway, she stopped, and her heart dropped when she saw Stanley sprawled out on the cou
ch. She rushed over, fearing the worst, and laid her hand on his chest to listen for his heartbeat. With a sigh of relief, she held her hand over the strong beat of his heart.

  “Oh, Stanley,” she whispered. “You scared me to death.”

  Her soft words were not intended to wake her slumbering husband, but a moment later his eyes fluttered open. It took him only another moment to realize where he was. “Must have finally dozed off,” he mumbled. “What time is it anyhow?”

  “It’s about 7:30,” Rosie replied. “How late did you stay up?”

  “Well, I ain’t saying I stayed up, and I ain’t saying I didn’t,” he said. “All you need to know is the house was safe and sound.”

  Leaning forward, she placed a gentle kiss on his lips. “Thank you, Stanley,” she said. “I know you watched over me so I wouldn’t have to worry.”

  He blushed slightly. “It’s what I’m s’posed to do,” he said.

  “Well, why don’t you go back into our bedroom and take a nap,” she suggested. “I was just going to do some Christmas baking this morning, so there’s no place we need to go.”

  He stood up and wobbled a little on his feet. “You sure?” he asked. “I’m barely tired at all.”

  “I’m sure,” she said, holding back a smile. “And maybe later this afternoon we can go by and see Bradley and Clarissa.”

  “Good idea,” Stanley said, covering a yawn. “We need a little meeting with them, compare notes and all.”

  “Yes, I know that Bradley will want to hear about your experiences,” she assured him.

  “Okay then,” he nodded. “I’ll just close my eyes for a few minutes.”

  “You do that,” she said. “And I’ll keep myself busy in the kitchen.”

  Rosie watched Stanley walk down the hall, half asleep, towards their bedroom with a loving smile on her face. “Staying up all night to protect me,” she whispered. “What a wonderful man.”

  Twenty minutes later, Rosie was elbows deep in sugar cookie dough, forming it into separate rounds to refrigerate for a few hours. Then she’d be able to roll them out and cut them into shapes. She glanced over to the calendar on the wall. Christmas was less than a week away. Would they be safe by then? Or would their Christmas be overshadowed with fear?

  She lifted one of the rounds of dough out of the bowl and placed it on the piece of plastic wrap she had waiting on the counter. Tightly wrapping the dough up, she turned towards the refrigerator and froze. The dough dropped from her nerveless hands as she read the words printed in block letters on the white board attached to the side of the fridge.

  “FIRE”

  “BURN”

  Chapter Forty-two

  Rosie opened the door before Bradley could knock and placed her finger over her lips for silence. Then she let him inside and led him into the kitchen.

  “Stanley was up all night,” she whispered once they were in the kitchen. “And I don’t want to wake him for anything.”

  Bradley nodded. “Did any of your electronics go off last night?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head. “Not that I know of,” she replied. “But, for some reason, Stanley stayed out in the living room all night. I found him in the recliner this morning. ‘Bout scared me to death. I thought he wasn’t breathing.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “No, but I’m sure it was because he didn’t want me to worry,” she replied, and then she pointed to the white board. “But this certainly caught my attention.”

  Bradley inhaled sharply when he read the words. “I think you two ought to think about staying at our house tonight,” he said. “This is getting—”

  “I ain’t staying at no one else’s house but my own,” Stanley said, his hands on his hips. “We got the situation well in hand.”

  “Stanley, I’m so sorry,” Rosie said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I woke up when I heard the front door open,” he replied, accusing her with his gaze. “I got the ears of a hawk.”

  “I was just so afraid,” Rosie began. “I didn’t…”

  “You were afraid, so you called Bradley and didn’t wake me up?” he asked, his voice filled with hurt. “I told you I’d protect you, Rosie. I promised you I would.”

  “No! No, it wasn’t like that at all,” Rosie pleaded. “I wanted you to sleep because you stayed up all night.”

  “Stayed up protecting you and our home,” he said, glaring at her. “And I did a goldurn good job at it, too.”

  “Yes, you did,” Rosie replied. “You did a—”

  “Then why did you have to call someone else when you was scared?” he asked angrily.

  “Stanley…” she began.

  “Stanley, did you see these last night?” Bradley asked, interrupting their argument and pointing to the words on the board.

  The fight went out of him, and Stanley stared in disbelief. “No,” he said softly. “No, I didn’t.”

  “What happened last night that made you decide to stay up?” Bradley asked, his voice firm and professional.

  “I saw something,” he said. “Something on my ghost finder app.”

  “Your what?” Rosie asked.

  “My ghost finder app,” he exclaimed. “It’s made to detect paranormal activity in your house. Even has a voice readout when the ghost is trying to talk to you.”

  Bradley sighed. “Stanley, those things are nonsense,” he said. “They can’t really tell you the words ghosts are saying. Mary’s even done tests with them. They just don’t work.”

  Stanley lifted his head just a little higher and met Bradley’s eyes. “Don’t you think I knowed that?” he asked. “Don’t you think after the first couple o’ nonsense words I figured it out?”

  His eyes narrowed, and he took a deep breath. “But then after I walked Rosie back to bed last night, I come back here to the kitchen to get my phone and get myself back in bed. What do I find? The last two entries on the voice app. Fire and death.”

  “Oh my!” Rosie exclaimed.

  But Stanley didn’t look in her direction. He kept his gaze locked with Bradley’s. “I knewed that ghost was playing with us,” he said. “And I knewed it had manipulated the phone app.”

  Bradley nodded. “You’re exactly right, Stanley,” he said. “It had.”

  “And I knewed I had to stay up all night to keep what’s mine safe,” he said.

  “And you did just that,” Bradley replied.

  “Yes I did,” Stanley replied. “And words on a white board or no, I intend to do it again tonight.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Ian was in the tiny kitchen of the cottage when Mary came out of her bedroom dressed and ready for the day. He looked over his shoulder at her as he stirred a pan of scrambled eggs. “Sleep well?” he asked.

  She nodded and took a cup out of the cupboard for tea. “Yes, really well,” she said. “And when I woke up, there was an angel standing next to my bed.”

  Grinning, Ian picked up the kettle and added hot water after Mary had dropped a bag of herbal tea into her cup. “Mike came by to check on you?” he asked.

  Nodding her thanks, she picked up the paper tag and dipped the soaked tea bag up and down in the water. “Not just check in, but report in,” she said. “They had another encounter with the second shadowy figure.”

  “The second one?” Ian asked, confused.

  “The one that seems to be associated with some kind of scent that relaxes you,” she said.

  “Ah, the one that made you sleep in the first morning,” he said, nodding. “And what was the result this time?”

  “It turned Bradley from frantically concerned to intensely laid back,” Mary said.

  Ian scooped the eggs onto two plates, added toast and bacon and carried them to the little table situated in a sunny nook. “Does that concern you?” he asked.

  She picked up a piece of bacon, took a bite and smiled gratefully. “Thanks for breakfast,” she said, and he nodded in response. “It only concerns m
e if there is real trouble that’s being masked.”

  “You mean Tony is using it,” he said.

  “Exactly,” Mary replied. “Is it a ruse to have everyone sleeping so soundly…”

  She stopped and shook her head. “I don’t even want to say it,” she said.

  Suddenly Adeline appeared in the extra seat at the table. “Good morning,” she said brightly. “And how did you both sleep?”

  “Very well,” Mary said. “Thank you. The bed was so comfortable.”

  Adeline turned to Ian. “And you?”

  “Aye, fine,” he said with a nod. “It was a fine bed”

  “And you didn’t sleep a wink,” she said, meeting his eyes. “A fine bed isn’t going to cure your sleep. But we can talk about that later.”

  She turned to Mary. “Tell me about your ability,” she said. “How you work with ghosts.”

  “Well, I don’t really know how it works,” Mary said. “But ghosts are, for lack of a better word, attracted to me. They know I can help them move from their current state onto the next state.”

  “So, they are in a kind of limbo,” Adeline surmised. “A place where they do the same things over and over again? Or are stuck in the same place? Correct?”

  “Yes. Exactly,” Mary said. “And once they interact with me, they become kind of attached, so they can move away from where they were and find me so I can help them.”

  “And if I were a ghost stuck in an asylum,” Adeline said, “you might be the key to my breakout.”

  Mary sat back in her chair. “I guess I hadn’t thought of that before,” she said slowly. “When we had our first interaction at the asylum, it was probably enough for him to connect.”

  “And, by using whatever magnetic force you possess, he could free himself from the chains of his prison,” Adeline finished.

  “It makes perfect sense,” Ian agreed. “But what held him at the asylum? It seems that he had the ability to come and go as he pleased if you agree that the deaths caused by fire over the years were his doing.”