by Lynn Cahoon
“I haven’t told you anything. Not really.” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. On one hand, I didn’t really believe in my neighbor’s talents. On the other, she was probably the only one who had even an idea of what my dream might mean, if anything. I decided to tell her the truth. As I finished, she was watching me, amusement in her gaze. “What? You don’t believe me, do you?”
“On the contrary, I knew you were sensitive. I could feel it.” Esmeralda waved away my protests. “It’s okay. It doesn’t change who you are. And I won’t be buying you a fortune-telling outfit anytime soon.”
“I’m not sensitive. I just had a dream. So can we get back to the problem at hand?” I smiled and nodded at Greg, who was across the table talking to Josh and watching me closely. I lowered my voice. “What does my dream mean?”
“Let’s step back a minute. I believe she was trying to tell you something.” Esmeralda sipped her coffee.
“Yeah, like we’re in her house and need to get out.” I smiled at Carrie as she delivered our food. “This smells wonderful. I was starving.”
Esmeralda chuckled as Carrie left after she finished serving the others at the table. “You’re always hungry. Which is probably why she showed you the kitchen memory. Or what she called a dream. She knew you’d understand the setting.”
“Home, family, food.” I shrugged. “I get all three. Doesn’t everyone?”
“Actually, no. For some people, there are a lot of priorities over those. You focus on others.”
“But I work. I’m not a stay-at-home mom raising kids.” I dropped my voice. “Greg and I are only dating.”
“Your job is taking care of people. You have your own type of family. Some you were born to, like your aunt, and some, like us, are lucky enough to be inside your world as friends. You have a large, growing family, Jill. I believe that’s why she chose you to reach out to. She knew you’d understand.” Esmeralda took a bite of her spinach, mushroom, and provolone omelet.
“Then she made a mistake.” I couldn’t believe I was talking about a dream girl or a ghost like she was as real as the people I was having breakfast with.
“No, she didn’t.” Esmeralda gently tapped my hand with her own. “You came to me. I can help you decipher what she said. Let’s eat, and then we’ll break this down. I want to think a bit on what you said.”
Greg caught my gaze. He pointed to the breakfast sitting in front of me that I hadn’t touched yet. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Sorry, we were just . . . catching up.” I picked up my fork and dropped my gaze. He would have pushed it if we were alone, but for now, he’d let my lie stand. I cut into the waffles but all I could think of was how real the smell of baking cookies had been in my dream.
On the way back to the house, I stared out the window and listened to Amy’s recounting of her last surf trip. When we arrived back at the house and got out of the van, she pulled me aside.
“Hey, are you all right?” Amy’s gaze searched my face, looking for answers to her question.
I forced a smile. “I didn’t sleep well. I guess the whole ghost thing threw me off more than I thought it might.”
“That was so weird, wasn’t it? I got chills when the board exploded. Did you feel Esmeralda moving under your hands because I didn’t?” Amy looked around the group gathered at the front door and found the fortune-teller. “You know, maybe she’s the real thing. I mean, I always thought it was some kind of shtick. You know, like a grift or something, but after last night, I’m starting to wonder.”
“Yeah, she’s something else, that’s for sure.” As if Esmeralda had heard my words, she waved a hand and smiled. I took Amy’s arm and we walked toward the group. “Time to play ghost hunter again.”
“Today’s going to be the best. Justin and I are splitting off and going to play on the beach for a while. Do you want to come down with us? This is probably the last time we’ll be able to get on this beach. I’m sure the mayor’s friends will be making it private to go along with the prices of the condos they’ll be building here.” She paused at the door and ran her hand on the carved wood that surrounded the entryway. “It’s too bad. This house is history. You can feel the past just trying to break out.”
As I followed Amy into the house, I realized she was dead on. The past was trying to tell me something. And I needed to spend some time with Esmeralda to find the message. “I might come down a little later. I need to talk to Esmeralda for a while.”
“Okay.” She started to walk away, then turned back. “It’s not because of Justin, is it? You like him, right?”
“What, are you kidding? He’s great and the two of you are perfect for each other. Go have fun. I’ll come down as soon as I can.” I gave my friend’s arm a supportive squeeze. “I promise.”
After Amy left to change into what would probably be a skimpy bikini and flip-flops to go play in the water, I searched the house for Esmeralda. I found her and Jake in the kitchen. “Hey.”
She glanced up from their conversation. “I told Jake about the dream. He’s more of an expert in dream analysis than I am. I hope you don’t mind.”
Why would I mind you sharing my private conversation that made me sound crazy with some total stranger? I pushed away my first response and shrugged, ignoring the question. “So what do you think?”
“One. Our Maryanne did have a child. A baby who for some reason she couldn’t keep. Did she lose her to an illness or to her father? Or maybe she gave her away, it’s hard to tell. Do we have access to birth records from around that time?”
“Around what time? Maryanne lived here for years starting in 1960. She could have had a baby and gave her away at any time. Well, until she got too old to conceive. How old was she when she disappeared?” Figuring out the timeline was giving me a headache.
Esmeralda did some quick math. “She was twenty-three in 1960 when she inherited the house. I found that in the city records when she set up the city services in her name. Then last time she paid taxes was, what, five years ago?”
“Fifteen, but the trust paid them for a while.” I pulled out a notebook where I’d quickly written down everything I’d learned about Maryanne this morning after my shower. “If our numbers are right, she’d be in her seventies. When do people stop having babies, in their forties? Fifties?”
“Maybe, but you said she looked young in the dream. I’m guessing she had the baby sometime after she got here. We should look for births between 1960 and 1970.” Jake nodded. “That feels right. She got here, met someone, and got pregnant. Then something happened and her dream life didn’t come true.”
“We’re basing a lot on a dream I had. Maybe I’m just projecting my own feelings. That happens, right?” I looked at the paper where I’d written down the details of the dream. “That’s a lot of kids even if we narrow it down to this area.”
“Add in female child. You said it was a little girl, right? And only look at Bakerstown hospital. I don’t think she’d go farther. And maybe eliminate all the ones with a dad on the birth certificate.” He nodded. “This is all about that kid. I feel it.”
“The crib in the attic, it was for a little girl. And there was a pillow with the name Ariel stitched into it.” I saw the look from Esmeralda. I’d told her that was the name of the little girl from my dream. Maybe that’s why I had the dream. I saw the crib and my subconscious took off and wove a good story.
No matter what I thought about ghosts and spirits, I knew Jake was right about it being about the kid. But it didn’t make the bad feeling in the pit of my stomach go away. “Well, this will have to wait until Monday. Everyone who can get into the city records is here with us. Maybe Maryanne had something here in the house?”
“You mean like a family record?” Esmeralda stared at Jake, who shrugged. “How come we didn’t think of that?”
“Sometimes the obvious evades me.” Jake sat on
the table. “I would think it would be on this level. You wouldn’t keep something like that in the cellar. It would get weather damaged.”
“Not in the kitchen either.” I turned around and stared at the door. “Didn’t the living room have bookshelves?”
“No, but the room next to it does. Jake and I almost went in there this morning, but then the group was ready to go eat.” Esmeralda strode through the doorway. “Let’s go see if we can find this book.”
When we reached the library, I whistled. Bookshelves lined the room with a small desk in the exact center of the space. Most of the books were on California history but there was also a large section on botany and, as Jake pointed out, witchcraft. Historical tombs as well as fiction and what looked like spell books filled the shelves.
“I wonder what they are planning on doing with these.” I ran a hand over a shelf of a leather-bound set of history books that looked like they were written in the 1800s. The thought of these books being trashed made my heart hurt. “I need to talk the mayor into letting me buy these before they tear down the house.”
“Offer that guy enough money and he’d let you buy the entire contents of the house. Marvin’s only interested in the land. He has to be getting a kickback from the developers.” Esmeralda paused and pulled out a book. “Protection spells. Most of these books are on protection and masking spells. I don’t know a lot about witchcraft, but I’d guess she was hiding from someone.”
“Or something,” Jake added. When both women stared at him. “What? Oh, yeah, you all don’t believe in creatures. Sorry to try to break up your safe, real world.”
“Don’t mind him, Jill. He was always looking for the man behind the curtain. He thinks there must be more than just us living in this world.” Esmeralda shot Jake a glare. Even I could read the message behind that look. Don’t be a jerk. “So this is another piece of her story. She was hiding from someone.”
“Maybe that’s why she left,” I mused. “Maybe she felt like she wasn’t safe anymore.”
“Could be, but typically people don’t just disappear. I tried to track her down, nothing. Once the police established she was missing, there was not a trace of her that I could find anywhere.” Esmeralda blushed. “Don’t tell Greg, but I used the station computer program to try to find a new bank account, job, or any trace. Nothing.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Greg announced as he came into the room. “Typically, searching for missing people isn’t part of a dispatcher’s job, but since you apparently were given the passwords by one of my officers, I have a feeling this wasn’t the first time you’ve been in the software.”
“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.” Esmeralda squared her shoulders. “I figured out the system on my own. Just punish me.”
“Like I said, I didn’t hear anything so there’s nothing to punish you for.” Greg saw me looking at him and shrugged. “I follow a strict ‘what I don’t know, I don’t ask’ rule. Especially when I’m dealing with certain members of my staff.”
“But don’t you think it’s weird no one ever saw her again?” I turned to Greg, trying to get the focus off Esmeralda. “And why didn’t the police department work harder on this?”
“Do you know how many people go missing each year? And we don’t know if she just went into her own witness protection program and disappeared off the grid as Maryanne.” Greg softened his tone. “We both know that’s been done before.”
That was exactly what one woman had done to escape an abusive husband. A woman who then had been the prime suspect in that same husband’s death when he wound up in South Cove a few months ago. “Maybe she had a diary. That might be where we find the answers to all these questions.”
“That search I can help with.” Greg crossed over to another bookshelf. “Has anyone looked here?”
Shaking my head, I went back to the books in front of me. I moved them out, just to make sure there wasn’t a book hidden behind, but after we’d gone through the entire room, we’d found nothing.
Darla and Matt strolled in. “There you guys are. We thought you’d disappeared.”
We hadn’t, I thought, but someone had. “Nope, just looking through these books. Do you know if anyone has claim to the stuff in the house? Or who I would talk to about making a bulk offer?”
“That would be me. He’s given me permission to deal with the contents as soon as this fund-raiser was over. I was just going to box everything up and take it to the thrift shop. I’d rather walk in with a check.” Darla grinned. “You’re making my job easy as trustee for the house. Give me what you think is fair and I’ll help you box up the stuff. We’ll have to do it on the fifth though.”
“Can I get the same deal for her workshop downstairs? Jake and I can come on the fifth if I can get the day off.” Esmeralda glanced at Greg.
“Of course, although I’m not sure why you’d want a bunch of old herbs.” Darla wrinkled her nose. “I can still smell that room downstairs.”
“Let’s just say I’m curious about what she was working on.” Esmeralda turned to me. “Mind if I have the spell books?”
“Take what you need.” I glanced around the room. “These will all have to go home with me and be stored until I can work my way through them.”
“Are you sure you really want all of them?” Greg glanced around the room.
Esmeralda chuckled. “I foresee a lot of box hauling in your future, boss.”
Chapter 5
Matt and Darla explained the plan they’d devised for the rest of the meals that weekend. Instead of going out, we decided to bring in a lunch/dinner combo of fried chicken from South Cove’s only restaurant. Darla called the order in and we all headed down to the water to relax for a while. On the beach I spread out a blanket and Darla handed me the extreme sunblock she used for her face. “Want some?”
I’d rather wear the thick Coke bottle glasses I wore in high school, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I shook my head. “No, thanks. I lathered on some before I came down. Besides, I’ve been needing to get outside. I don’t think I’ve had a beach day since the week after the fourth.”
Darla paled a little. “Those were some crazy times. I’m so glad Matt didn’t have problems over that whole thing.”
I was too. I’m not sure Darla knew how close Matt did come to having to explain his actions during that summer’s fiasco, but as my mom always said, all’s well that ends well. “Anyone who knows Matt wouldn’t believe he did something like that.”
“I know. But this relationship thing is scary some times. You just get used to having someone around and, bam, you might lose him.” Darla watched while Matt and Greg waded into the water’s edge. “You probably have guessed that this is my first real relationship. I think it might just turn into something.”
“I’m happy for you.” My gaze was on Greg. Man, did he have the shoulder action thing. The guy worked out and you could tell it. I was a lucky girl. Matt was shorter and a little pudgy around the middle. Justin looked like the college professor he was, lean and thin. And Jake, well he rivaled Greg in body build, but Jake was dark to Greg’s light hair and coloring. “The boys are having fun.”
Darla laughed as she stood up. “Men always find time for fun. Maybe we should take a page from their playbook.”
I thought about the dream of Maryanne and her child, but there wasn’t anything I could do on that until Monday when the city records department opened again. “Totally agree. Let’s go follow their lead.”
Justin and Jake were setting up a volleyball net and for the next few hours, all we did was play and laugh and splash in the ocean. Tired, I fell on the beach blanket and watched as the men played yet another round of volleyball. Esmeralda threw a towel down next to me and opened a bottle of water.
“Men can bond over the silliest things, can’t they?” Esmeralda looked younger with her hair pulled back with
a headband and the shimmering blue one-piece suit she wore. Her legs were tan, which told me my neighbor spent a lot of time out on the beach or at least in her backyard.
“You’ve got that right.” I drew a house in the sand with my finger. “Jake seems nice. How long have you been dating?”
“We’re not in that kind of relationship. Jake is the little brother I never had.” Esmeralda smiled at the image. “You need to draw bushes and flowers to make the house happy.”
“Do you think houses can feel things like we do?” It wasn’t a silly question. Back in medieval times, they thought trees were animated.
She nodded. “Especially the older ones like where we’re staying. Too many lives have been lived there. Too many births, deaths, sex, sadness, all the emotions fill the wood timbers and then the house takes on those emotions. Your house is a happy house.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at the vision of the kitchen that came over me. “I feel good there. I guess that’s what matters, right?”
But Esmeralda wasn’t watching me. Instead, her attention was on the cliff where the house sat. To get to the beach, we’d climbed down a set of old wooden stairs that had seen better days. My gaze followed hers and for a minute, I thought I saw a woman, dressed in white, her long dark hair floating in the breeze. Then she was gone. I squeezed my eyes tight and then looked again. Definitely gone.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but you are sensitive, Jill Gardner. The spirits feel your awakening and you will get more visits like the one you had last night.” Esmeralda paused. “And just now.”
I ignored the implication. “What about Maryanne’s house? Is it happy or sad?”
“Sad, really sad. Mostly from missed opportunities.” Esmeralda’s eyes popped open. “Isn’t that strange?”
I looked back at the house and thought about the dream. Missed opportunities. A life lived undercover? Or just missing a piece of her heart? “I don’t think that’s strange at all.”
