Outback Ghost

by Rachael Johns

  This empathy towards Lily-Blue was scary and she didn’t know how to react.

  She swallowed, knowing Heidi needed her to get over her fears and hang-ups. ‘Do you know why Lily-Blue is sad?’

  Heidi nodded solemnly. ‘She misses her mum.’

  Tears welled in Stella’s eyes. The image of the photos on Esther’s fridge flashed into her head and she found herself wanting to reach out and comfort that little girl in much the same way she sought to comfort her own.

  That’s ridiculous, she told herself. Did she really believe Heidi was communicating with a ghost? Adam’s sister’s body had never been found. But no matter how much she logically tried to reason this weird encounter away, she couldn’t. In her heart she knew that Adam’s sister had died a long time ago and the goosebumps on her arms, on her legs – was it possible to have goosebumps on your heart? – all made her feel as if that little girl was here, in this room, with them.

  ‘Oh.’ Stella felt totally inept to deal with something like this.

  Heidi’s little body shook again and another big sob left it. Within seconds Stella felt her daughter’s tears seeping into her robe. ‘Oh’ wasn’t enough. She was the mum here; it was her job to fix things.

  ‘Heidi,’ she said, her voice firm. ‘What else do you know about Lily-Blue? Has she told you who her mum is?’

  Heidi shook her head.

  Stella let out a sigh of relief. ‘Has she told you anything about her family?’

  ‘She misses her brother and dad. But mum is most sad.’

  ‘So you don’t know who her family are?’

  ‘No.’ Heidi looked at Stella oddly as if wondering why she was pressing this issue.

  ‘Okay.’ Stella brought Heidi’s head back against her chest and kissed her forehead. This knowledge gave her tiny comfort. Who knows how Adam or Esther would react if Heidi blurted all this out to them.

  ‘What we going to do?’ Heidi asked.

  Her utter faith that her mum could fix this warmed Stella’s heart, yet also left her feeling vulnerable and inadequate. She hated to ask Heidi more questions, but she needed as much information as she could get before she decided what to do. ‘What else can you tell me about Lily-Blue? Has she always lived here?’

  Heidi’s face scrunched into a frown. ‘She lives here now. She only used to visit. Did piano lessons.’

  ‘Good.’ Stella stroked Heidi’s hair in reassurance. ‘Anything else? How old is she?’

  This brought a small smile to Heidi’s lips. ‘She’s seven. Like me.’

  Exactly the right age. ‘Do you know why she can’t see her mum anymore?’

  ‘No. Something bad happened but she won’t tell me. She wants her mum happy again.’

  At Heidi’s words, Stella swore she felt the air shift over the bed. Her skin bristled slightly but she didn’t feel the discomfort she’d felt when she’d seen the curtain moving and heard the soft crying earlier. Hearing the way Heidi talked about her ‘friend’ had humanised her for Stella. Thanks to the photo she had an idea in her head of what this spirit looked like and she liked Adam and Esther and therefore felt an affinity towards it. But the biggest thing she felt was obligation. She wanted nothing more than to fix her daughter’s heartache, and to do that she had to help Lily-Blue.

  In the course of a few hours, she’d gone from not believing in ghosts to fearing them and then wanting to help them. What was the world coming to?

  ‘Okay, darling,’ she whispered to Heidi, ‘I think it’s time you get some rest. I’m going to stay here with you tonight—’

  ‘And Lily-Blue?’ Heidi asked.

  Stella nodded. ‘Yes, and Lily-Blue. And I promise you I’m going to think long and hard about Lily-Blue’s problem. I know you want to help her and we’re going to do the best we can, but I need you to trust me on this, okay?’

  ‘Yes.’ Heidi’s voice was starting to sound drowsy.

  Stella manoeuvered them both so Heidi was lying down, her arm protectively and lovingly draped across her daughter’s little body. ‘I don’t want you to say anything about Lily-Blue to anyone else just yet,’ she said. She didn’t know whether to tell Heidi she thought she was speaking to a ghost or to leave such terms out of this, but she wanted to instill in her the importance of not saying anything, especially to Adam or Esther. ‘I need you to promise me this and I promise you I’ll do everything I can to make Lily-Blue and her mummy happy again. Okay?’

  ‘Okay, Mummy.’ Heidi snuggled into Stella and for once she was thankful for Heidi’s unquestioning faith and trust. Sometimes this lack of guile and Heidi’s inherent belief in goodness worried Stella, but tonight she welcomed it.

  Just when she thought Heidi was asleep, she reached out, slipped her hand inside Stella’s robe and rubbed it over Stella’s bare stomach. ‘Why aren’t you wearing pjs?’

  A wave of heat washed over Stella as she recalled what she’d been doing not so long ago. What kind of mother indulged in casual sex with her daughter sleeping only a room away? Or not sleeping as it so appeared. She cringed at the thought of Heidi having heard anything but her guilt meshed together with the pleasure that rode on the recollection. ‘I was hot,’ she said quickly. ‘Now go to sleep.’

  Heidi’s little hand sought Stella’s and she squeezed it. ‘Love you, Mummy.’

  Aww. Stella felt as if her heart had cracked in half. ‘Love you too.’

  It was less than a minute before Heidi’s breathing took on the heavy sound of sleep but Stella guessed sleep wouldn’t come as easily to her. As she cherished the feeling of Heidi’s little body enveloped in her arms, she tried to reconcile her feelings and duties towards her daughter with what she’d done with Adam. All those sensations, all those feelings that had rocked her while she’d made love with him, had been things she’d thought she could live without. But now that she’d tasted such fruits, she wanted more. She wanted someone to tell her that feeling like a sensual woman again and loving the way her body fit and moved with his didn’t have to exist separately to her love for Heidi, but somehow she knew that wasn’t the case.

  Too depressed by that thought and longing for a coffee but not wanting to move in case Heidi awoke and got upset again, Stella lay prostrate on the bed wondering what the hell she was supposed to do about Lily-Blue. Then a thought struck. Had Heidi’s other imaginary friends also been more than Stella had imagined? She’d always been kind of proud of Heidi’s vivid imagination and the way she interacted with her ‘friends’, but the thought that maybe her daughter was communicating with the other side spooked her.

  Having always believed she didn’t believe in ghosts, she racked her brain trying to think of the snippets of information she’d heard from others and had relegated to some deep, distant place in her mind. If only she could extract herself long enough to get her computer and use Google.

  It was now blatantly clear that the reason she’d never found any information on Lily-Blue was because she’d disappeared before the age of the internet but there’d be millions of sites about ghosts.

  Heidi made a snoring sound and Stella carefully disentangled herself from her daughter and slipped out of bed. She looked at the vacant spot by the window – she could no longer see movement, hear anything or feel a presence in the room and she wondered if Lily-Blue was resting now too. Did ghosts sleep? Unable to answer that question when not so long ago she hadn’t even thought they existed, she pleaded with it nonetheless.

  ‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she whispered. ‘Please just let her sleep.’

  And then she hurried down the hallway into the kitchen and grabbed her laptop off the table. She didn’t pause long enough to get the coffee she craved and was back in Heidi’s bedroom within thirty seconds. Heidi had sprawled diagonally across the bed in the short time Stella had been gone, so she perched herself on the other end and opened the laptop. Impatience plagued her as she waited for the computer to rouse to life and she cursed at the seemingly ridiculous length of time it took her internet to
connect. When it did, when she clicked open her browser and saw Google pop up on the screen in front of her, she’d never been happier for the World Wide Web.

  What is a ghost? she typed quickly.

  As suspected, pages and pages of entries appeared on the screen before her. She glanced behind her, wondering if Lily-Blue was here somewhere and if she could see what Stella was doing. She’d have no clue that this was a virtual font of information; she might not even recognise the laptop. Pushing that thought aside, she started with the first site.

  It was a simple definition – A ghost is an apparition of a dead person believed to appear or show itself to the living.

  But Stella wanted more than this. She wanted to know why her little girl could see and interact with such a thing. She wanted answers, meanings, reasons. She wanted to know if her suspicion that something untoward had ended Lily-Blue’s life fit with the general consensus of ghost believers. The next site came a little closer.

  A spirit or apparition that shows itself to the living is the energy or soul of a dead person, who is somehow stuck between death and eternity, unable to successfully pass over. It is believed these spirits often died in traumatic or highly emotional circumstances. There have been many instances of living people interacting with the dead – through the use of the senses. Ghosts have been seen, smelt, heard and even touched.

  Stella snorted. ‘Unknown? Isn’t everything about the supernatural speculation?’

  She hadn’t meant to say this aloud, but as she did the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and an icy chill descended over her body. Tucking her legs beneath the covers, she tried not to let the feeling of someone in the room besides them unbalance her as she continued to read.

  There are many reasons why a spirit might not have been able to pass over. Some remain close to the place they died, even if they had not been there for long. It is believed these spirits may be confused or may not even know they are dead.

  Oh God. Stella clamped her hand over her mouth, her heart aching at the confusion Lily-Blue might be feeling.

  These ghosts stay in the place of their death but only make contact with people who are sensitive to spirits. Some spirits stay on earth because they are scared of what awaits them, others still want to take care of unfinished business. This may be something to do with those closest to them or a message they need to deliver, and until they complete their goal, they cannot leave the realms of earth.

  Occasionally it is a living person who is keeping the spirit from passing on. This can occur for a number of reasons – the living may feel things have been left unsaid and they may wish to make right with the past. Sometimes people become almost obsessed with their grief and until they recover, the spirit is not able to settle.

  As she read this last bit, she thought of Esther. Heidi had said Lily-Blue spoke of her mother’s sadness. Could she feel that? Did she make appearances at the main house too? Or was Lily-Blue here because something awful had happened to her in this cottage? Stella’s spine tingled at the thought and she glanced around the room wishing the walls could talk.

  The fact was, whether she liked the idea or not, she could no longer deny that she believed Heidi was talking to something real. She’d felt it herself and was now certain she’d heard it before tonight as well. This spirit or whatever it was might not physically harm her daughter – she truly didn’t believe Lily-Blue meant any danger – but Heidi would remain emotionally scarred if they couldn’t help. For that reason alone, Stella couldn’t bury her head in the sand about this.

  She had to do something to help. The question was what?

  Chapter Fifteen

  By rights, Adam should feel like a zombie. Although he’d eventually made himself go to bed in the early hours of the morning, he’d been too buzzed to sleep. Despite this, he’d leapt out of bed with the sun, cooked and devoured a full breakfast and was driving around the farm aimlessly, wondering what he should do before six o’clock. Mutton snored loudly in the passenger seat, no doubt wondering what had gotten into his master.

  ‘Just wait till you learn about the wonders of the opposite sex.’ Adam laughed as he reached over and ruffled Mutton’s fur. He reckoned sexual satisfaction could give caffeine a run for its money as a stimulant. The dog glanced up, frowned in the way that only puppies could and promptly fell back to sleep.

  Even though harvest had finished, there were plenty of jobs that needed to be done, but Adam couldn’t settle to any of them. What he really wanted was to drive over to the cottage and give Stella a good morning kiss. He grinned and his body tightened all over at the thought of surprising her. Of throwing rocks against her window and sneaking in before Heidi woke up. Yet, as much as the idea appealed, he had the feeling Heidi would already be awake. From what he’d heard most kids were insanely early risers. No doubt after the night they’d had Stella needed coffee and something to keep Heidi occupied more than anything else.

  Having stalled the ute, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and stared out across a paddock filled with grazing sheep. Animals. More than once Stella and Heidi had mentioned the little girl’s love of all things with feathers or fur and last night they’d spoken about how much she’d love to meet Ruby’s horses. Adam wanted to do something special for Stella and in the light of her mum-status, doing something for Heidi might be better than organising a picnic or asking her to go see a movie. It would also seem less like a date and they’d both been clear that, whatever this thing was between them, it wasn’t heading into relationship territory.

  Inspired, he dug his mobile phone out of his pocket and found Ruby’s number.

  ‘Hello?’ She sounded sleepy when she answered a few moments later.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Is it? I thought it was still the middle of the night.’

  He glanced at the clock on his dashboard. ‘Shit, sorry. I didn’t realise how early it was.’ He felt like he’d been awake for hours.

  ‘That’s okay. I’m awake now.’

  ‘And so am I,’ he heard Drew, Ruby’s fiancé and also a local cop, growl in the background.

  The way he was feeling, Adam couldn’t summon any remorse.

  ‘What can I do for you, Adam?’ Ruby asked.

  Two hours after Adam had finished his call with Ruby, he finally allowed himself to head on over to the cottage. He’d worked hard in those two hours, checking sheep and even getting in some paperwork, so that his conscience and schedule were clear for the rest of the day. Mutton, knowing a playmate resided here, scrambled over Adam’s lap in an attempt to escape as he parked in front of the picket fence. Adam had barely pushed open the driver’s side door before Mutton dashed up the path to signal their arrival. He followed not far behind but the screen door was flung open before he reached the porch steps.

  ‘Mutton! Adam!’ Heidi, wearing her hair in the cutest pigtails ever, dropped to her knees to cuddle the puppy and looked up at Adam. The genuine excitement in her eyes warmed his heart.

  ‘Hey Heids. Is your mum around?’

  She nodded. ‘In kitchen.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He ruffled her hair, pulled off his boots and then let himself into the house. He headed to the kitchen and as he turned in the doorway, he froze at the sight of Stella leaning over the sink washing the morning dishes. She wore an over-sized T-shirt and not much else. His gaze dropped to her bare legs and he found himself unable to resist.

  ‘Good morning,’ he announced as he crossed the room.

  She spun around, blinking her eyes in shock. ‘Adam?’

  ‘You must have been lost in some daydream if you didn’t hear me thumping down the hall.’

  She opened her mouth but before she could explain herself, he stepped right up close, planted his hands on her bare thighs and pulled her against him. He claimed her mouth with his, following through on the good morning he’d been dreaming about since he’d gotten out of bed.

  Her wet palms came up and thrust against his chest. ‘Adam,’ she s
quealed as she tore her lips from his. Red flashed on her cheeks making her look even more gorgeous than usual.

  ‘Sorry.’ He dropped his hands and held them up in surrender. ‘I couldn’t help myself.’

  She smiled. ‘Heidi might have seen you.’

  He shrugged and looked unashamedly down at her delicious legs. ‘If you want me to behave myself, you should wear pants.’

  ‘I am!’ Her eyes widened.

  ‘I meant as in shorts or trousers.’

  She rolled her eyes and hissed, ‘If I’d known you’d be dropping in at such an ungodly hour, I’d have worn full body armour.’

  ‘It’s after nine o’clock. The best part of the day is half gone.’

  As if she didn’t believe him, she turned her head to look at the clock on the microwave. ‘Wow, I thought it was earlier. I’ve barely slept a wink.’

  ‘Me neither.’ The grin he’d been wearing since last night widened. ‘Look why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you a coffee. It’s the least I can do considering I’m partly responsible for your sleepless night.’

  As if in a trance, she nodded slowly, pulled at a chair and then sank into it. Resisting the urge to kiss her again, Adam got busy making coffee. When he had two mugs filled with what he considered the nectar of the gods, he took them to the table and sat down alongside her.

  ‘Heidi? Where’s Heidi?’ Stella shot to her feet.