Then, on Sunday, they went to church in the morning. They had to get there more than an hour early because Emily had her religious education class at ten, and her mother had choir practice. As far as Emily knew, her father was going to wait in the car, with a book and some coffee, until it was time for the eleven o’clock service.
There were a few friends who she usually only saw at Sunday school, because they went to private schools or were home-schooled. So, it was fun to talk to them, and find out what they had been doing all week. Seeing them in person was a lot better than exchanging messages online and stuff like that.
She always had lots and lots of questions during the actual classes. But, she would only ask a few, because the teachers would usually end up looking tired, and say things like, “Well, that’s the nature of faith, Emily” or “It’s meant to be a parable, that’s all.”
After church, there was often a reception in the courtyard, or in the church hall, with coffee and hot cider and homemade cookies and all. Any teacher her parents encountered would invariably laugh nervously and say something like, “Your Emily is certainly an intellectually curious child, isn’t she?”
Her parents would look very pleased—which always seemed to disappoint the teachers, who seemed to be looking for concerned, and maybe even alarmed, reactions.
That particular day, they spent the class session discussing ethical dilemmas of various kinds, and different choices they could make if faced with complicated situations. Like, what should they do if they saw one of their friends cheating in class, or knew that they had plagiarized a homework assignment. Emily had had a bunch of “Well, what if…?” variations, which might change the details ever so slightly, but that didn’t seem to be the way her teacher, Mrs. Mulligan, wanted the conversation to go.
She also had a stack of questions she wanted to ask about the afterlife, but didn’t have the nerve to turn the conversation in that direction, and wreck Mrs. Mulligan’s lesson plan.
“What unanswerable questions did you ask today?” her father wanted to know, when they were standing around at the reception after mass, eating snacks.
“I asked her why, no matter how much pitching the Red Sox have, it’s never enough,” Emily said, and both of her parents laughed.
“Did she have an answer?” her mother wanted to know.
“Fatally flawed bullpen,” Emily said, and her parents laughed again.
When they got home, it was such a warm day for October, that they spent the entire afternoon out on their deck. Her parents worked on their lectures for the upcoming week, and corrected midterms and papers, while Emily finished up her homework. By the time she was done, her parents were both still busily working away.
“Is it okay if I take Zack for a walk?” she asked.
“Sure,” her mother answered. “Just don’t go too far, and bring your cell phone with you.”
“Takeout Indian food sound good for tonight?” her father asked.
Emily nodded, since takeout Indian food always sounded good to her.
Naturally, she walked Zachary down to the big bridge. Because it was a nice day, there were a lot of people out on the water in sailboats and kayaks and canoes. A few other people, including Mr. Washburn, were fishing, but since it was late in the afternoon, most of them were starting to pack up their gear.
There was no sign of the ghost, and she wondered if he was gone for good. But, it seemed more likely that he really didn’t want to be visible when other people were around. Until she and Zack had been able to see him, he must have assumed he could appear whenever he wanted, without being noticed, but she had a feeling that he was a lot more cautious now.
So, she and Zachary crossed the bridge and wandered around aimlessly for a while. Zack fetched some sticks; Emily skipped some rocks in the cove. When they walked back, the fishermen had all gone, although a few pleasure boats were still drifting by, on their way in for the night.
“I don’t see anything,” she said to Zack.
Zack gave her what looked like a dog shrug.
“We can’t summon him, I don’t think,” Emily said. “It just seems to happen.”
Or not happen, depending.
They stood around for a few more minutes, before Emily decided to give up.
“Let’s go home,” she said to Zachary. “Mom and Dad will want to eat supper pretty soon.”
Zack followed her agreeably. But, as they were passing the rocks, he stopped and cocked his head. Emily could tell he was already seeing something, but it took a minute for the ghost to come into view for her.
“Good boy,” she said, giving him a pat. “You are very, very smart.”
Zack wagged his tail, clearly pleased by the compliment.
Emily knew that the ghost could see them, but wasn’t sure if he knew that it went both ways.
“Hi,” Emily said. “We wondered if you would be around today.”
The ghost smiled at them. “I am pleased to see you again, young lady.”
“I’m Emily,” she said. “I mean, you can call me that. And this is Zachary, although he likes Zack, too.”
The ghost nodded solemnly. “Thank you, Emily.” He shook the paw Zack offered. “And hello to you, Zachary.”
Zachary barked in response.
Should she ask—or pretend to have no idea? “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to know,” Emily said, “but, are you Mr. Griswold?”
The ghost stared at her with amazement. In fact, if he weren’t already a ghost, she would have said that he looked as though he had just seen one. “You know of me?” he asked.
“I was just guessing,” Emily said. “It seemed to make sense.”
He looked worried. “Have you spoken of this to others?”
It was probably impossible to lie to a ghost; they must have access to inside information. “My friend Bobby,” she said. “But, I hadn’t figured out who you were yet, so we just talked about me seeing a—well, you know, ghost.”
“Was that the young lad who was with you before?” Mr. Griswold asked.
Emily nodded. “He really wanted to see you, but he didn’t take it personally.”
“I don’t even know why you and your fine canine are able to see me, when no one else can,” he went on. “But, I think you are the vessels to allow me to communicate my message.”
Emily’s Aunt Patty, who lived in California, was into a lot of New Age stuff, which she described as being “spiritual.” Emily’s father described it as being “too much time in all of that ridiculous California sunshine.” The other-worldly things Aunt Patty talked about had always seemed very mysterious to Emily, and even kind of silly—but, maybe there was something to it.
“Do you want us to talk to Mrs. Griswold?” Emily asked. “Tell her we saw you, and you’re okay?”
Again, the ghost looked aghast. “These things are not that simple, child.”
“Why?” Emily asked curiously.
“We must never cause pain,” he said. “Or turmoil.”
Okay. It sounded like this ghost stuff was maybe more convoluted than it needed to be, though. On the other hand, what were the odds that, if she told her, that Mrs. Griswold would believe her, anyway?
Maybe she shouldn’t ask this, but she couldn’t resist. “Is it scary? Where you are? Or really boring, because it’s been a long time?”
He shook his head. “I have my task.”
That wasn’t really a clear answer. “Did you see a white light and everything? And wake up someplace beautiful?” she asked. “And now, do you sort of, I don’t know, commute back and forth?”
He smiled kindly at her. “There is much that can’t be explained. Time, and space—I have no words to describe it.”
“Are you allowed to explain stuff like this? To—” She didn’t know how to describe herself, in this situation. “Well, you know, civilians?”
He smiled again. “Everything is revealed at the right time.”
Maybe, when he was alive, he was the one who sho
uld have been a politician, instead of his wife, because he sure was good at avoiding giving straight answers. “But, there must be some reason Zack and I can see you,” she said. “It can’t be like, you know, just random.”
He nodded seriously. “It seems as though you two are destined to help.”
“How?” Emily asked.
“All is not known,” he said. “It seems that you and the noble animal will serve as the bridge. That is all that I know.”
She had met some kind of boring professors over the years, but Mr. Griswold spoke in an even more stiff way than they did. “Were you all formal and everything before?” she asked.
He looked confused.
“The way you speak,” Emily said. “It’s—well—unusual.”
He nodded. “Ah, I understand. Language is different for me now. It is not easy to find words you will understand.”
She still had about a trillion questions she wanted to ask, but it didn’t seem as though he was going to be able to answer them, or even if he could. “Are there things Zack and I are supposed to be doing? To help out?”
“Soon, I think,” Mr. Griswold said.
Maybe it was better just not to think too much about what all of this meant. Mr. Griswold was—the reasons didn’t matter, really—able to communicate with them. And, as far as she could tell, the only other important thing was that he needed their help to figure out a way to make Mrs. Griswold able to accept the fact that he was gone, and stop blaming herself.
There wasn’t much point in trying to make it any more complicated than that. And, hey, the whole thing was already pretty complicated.
Mr. Griswold looked up at the sky, as though he could hear something. “Ah,” he said, and nodded to himself. “At this time, I must bid you two farewell.”
With that, he faded away, and Emily found herself standing alone on the rocks with Zack. Then, she suddenly felt very hungry—for a big bowl full of chopped meat.
Yuck. But, it was heading towards sundown, and Zack was obviously ready for his dinner.
“Time to go home and get some food?” she asked.
Zack started bounding across the rocks, pulling her towards home.
Emily laughed, and followed him. “I think I’ll take that as a yes,” she said.
They were just starting down the dirt road towards their house, when Zack started to act—twitchy. Since he was so much more sensitive than she was, Emily looked around to see what might be wrong. It would be nice, of course, if it wasn’t another ghost. Then again, maybe it was just Mr. Griswold coming back to tell her something?
“Hello?” she called out cautiously.
“Help!” someone responded. “Down here!”
Down where? She could hear the voice, but she couldn’t locate it.
But, Zack was already pushing his way through the bushes on the side of the road. When she looked more closely, Emily could see that a lot of the branches were already broken.
The ground was very steep and rocky, but she could see flashes of bright colors at the bottom of the slope. She recognized Kurt, Bobby’s father’s regular sternman on his lobster boat.
He must have been riding his bike, and skidded out of control or something, because he was lying in a twisted heap of metal, bicycle wheels, and branches. The bright colors she had seen were the orange-and yellow fluorescent–colored biking clothes he was wearing, along with a shiny red helmet.
“Are you okay, Kurt?” she asked. “What happened?”
“Spun out on some gravel,” he said glumly. “I think I might have busted my leg.”
She saw the angle of his lower leg—and felt a little sick to her stomach. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It looks like it really hurts.”
“Yeah, it feels pretty bad.” Kurt sighed. “I’m going to be looking at about two months of not being able to ride. But, I sure am glad I had the helmet on.”
She was, too.
Zack was trying to drag branches away from the area, so that they could pull Kurt free, but Emily put her hand out and motioned for him to stop. “It’s okay, boy,” she said. “We’ll call for help—it’s easier.”
“Thanks, Emily,” Kurt said, as she took out her cell phone. “My gear must have gone flying all over the place when I was tumbling down the hill.”
That meant that she could give Zachary something to do, so he wouldn’t be bored while they waited for the ambulance to arrive. “Was it just a cell phone?” she asked.
Kurt shook his head. “It was one of those belts that holds water bottles, and food, and have a pocket to zip your keys and phone inside.”
The description was clear enough for Emily to remember having seen him wearing it before, when he biked past her on his regular rides, and she was pretty sure that the pack had been made of blue canvas. She closed her eyes, picturing the waist pack. Then, just for cover, she turned to Zack, who was already alert.
“Fetch Kurt’s bag, please, Zack,” she said.
She was pretty sure that the word “fetch” didn’t mean much to him, even though chasing after balls and sticks was one of his favorite ways to spend an afternoon. But, she pictured the blue pack as vividly as she could, including the image of Zack diligently searching the underbrush to try and locate it.
“Find the pack, boy,” she said. “Good boy!”
Zack barked, and then started snuffling around through the leaves and dirt.
“He’s awfully smart,” Kurt said, with obvious admiration. “Maybe you should sign up for some classes, and train him to be a Search-And-Rescue dog.”
When it came to that, Emily was pretty sure that Zachary wouldn’t need much training. Now that Zack was occupied, she quickly punched “911” into her keypad, so that she could report the accident and their location.
The dispatcher who answered was Sonya Hargrove, who also worked at the hair salon on weekends, in addition to her job at the Bailey’s Cove Police Department.
“Okay, hun, the paramedics are on their way,” Sonya said, once Emily had described what had happened. “They should be there in about ten minutes. Tell Kurt to hang on a little longer.” Then, before she hung up, she changed the subject abruptly. “How’s that conditioner I ordered working out for you?”
There wasn’t much demand in town for African-American hair-care supplies, but Sonya had done some research and put in a few special orders.
“Pretty well, thanks,” Emily said. “Especially when I leave it in overnight.”
“Glad to hear it,” Sonya said. “I emailed a few of my colleagues, to see what they thought, and they all agreed that those would be the best products for us to stock for you.”
There was the sound of another telephone ringing in the background.
“Oops, there’s another one! I need to take that, hun,” Sonya said. “You and Kurt just sit tight. The rescue squad’s ETA is down to about six minutes now.”
With all of the emergencies she had been around lately, Emily had finally looked it up on the Internet one night and found out that ETA meant “Estimated Time of Arrival.”
Since Kurt was a lifelong fisherman, six minutes was more than enough time for him to tell her about the time he had been on a swordfish fishing trip, and he and his shipmates caught an eight-hundred-pound unidentified scaly fish with huge, folded-up wings and long fangs. They had all been sure that the fish was a holdover from prehistoric times, and that it could probably fly, and maybe even breathe fire.
Emily had learned when she was very small that local fishermen were famous for telling tall tales that couldn’t possibly be true, but were always entertaining. So, she was happy to sit down on an old tree trunk and listen. Snacks were always an excellent idea, and she found a granola bar in her pocket, which she split in half, and she and Kurt shared it.
“And then,” Kurt said, deep in the story, “four more of them rose up out of the sea, twenty feet long, if they were an inch! They flapped their wings like madmen, and caused a wind strong enough to push our boat off course. The w
aves whipped up all around us, and we were sure that we were going to be swamped.”
Just then, Zack came charging out of the bushes, proudly carrying Kurt’s waist pack in his jaws.
“Well, how about that,” Kurt said. “You have a seriously smart dog there, Emily!”
Yep. He was the best dog ever, and Emily gave him a small biscuit she had found in her pocket.
Kurt was in the middle of describing the piercing shrieks the prehistoric bird-fish had made, and the way their fangs gleamed in the moonlight, when the rescue squad arrived.
Emily watched as they carefully extricated him from the tangle of mangled bicycle, put an air-splint on his lower leg, and strapped him into one of those metal rescue baskets. Then, they hauled him safely up the slope, to the dirt road, where they transferred him to a gurney.
“Oh, this is terrible,” Kurt said sadly. “I’m not going to be able to tell you what happened next, when we began using our shovels as swords, and confronted the dinosaur fish.”
Emily grinned. “You can finish it the next time I see you down at the boatyard.”
“Wait until I tell you about the giant spiny sea urchins that started hovering over us!” Kurt shouted, as the EMTs closed the back door of the ambulance.
Since it was going to be dark soon, the police gave Emily and Zack a ride home in one of their squad cars. Emily knew Officer McBride and Officer Rowland, and it was kind of amazing to realize that this wasn’t her first time in a police car. It wasn’t even her first time this month!
Zack enjoyed riding in any car, and he stood up on the backseat, pressing his nose against the thick wire barricade separating them from the front seat. It was funny to imagine him as a criminal who had just been arrested.
When the police car pulled up in front of her house, her parents came rushing out, looking alarmed.
Dog Whisperer Page 9
