Sheila Connolly - Relatively Dead 02 - Seeing the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  “I guess.” Ned did not sound convinced. “Can I tell her you’re coming over?”

  “Yes. I can leave now, so I won’t be long. Are you leaving?”

  “Uh, yes. I’m sorry—maybe I’m the one who screwed up. You’re right—I should have said something years ago.”

  “We can’t know for sure, but things will be different now. I’ll call you after I’ve talked to her, unless it’s really late. But I do have to work tomorrow, and things are kind of crazy at the museum. Oh, and there’s something else I need to tell you about, but that can wait. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Abby hung up first. Poor Ned—he was being such a guy about this whole thing. Had he ever discussed any of this with Leslie? Abby could see why he might have hesitated with her, but with Sarah? Abby was pretty sure that Sarah would have understood. And why do you think that, Abby? she asked herself.

  Because we share whatever it is, and Sarah passed it to Ned. We’re all connected. She located her keys and went out to the car, to drive to Lexington.

  11

  There was only one car in the driveway when Abby arrived at the Newhall house. She’d been there only once before, but it wasn’t hard to find, since it lay along the Battle Road, although the house was set back from the road itself. It had been standing at the time of the battle, but it had never been part of it. The light over the front door was on, as were several lights on the ground floor. Abby parked and turned off the car, but then she sat for a couple of moments, trying to sort out what she wanted to say. Of course, she didn’t know much: she’d been living with the “condition” for only a few months, and prior to that she would have said she was anything but sensitive to … whatever this thing was. Maybe Sarah would have an idea about what to call it, because Abby was still struggling to come up with a name, and Ned wasn’t helping much.

  She took a deep breath and climbed out of the car. Then she marched to the front door and rapped the knocker, since there was nothing so modern as a doorbell on the authentic colonial house. She heard footsteps inside, and then the door opened. Sarah looked at her, and Abby tried to fathom her expression. Was she angry? Hurt? Frightened?

  “I’m sorry,” they said in unison, and with that the atmosphere lightened, if just a bit.

  Sarah took a step back. “Come in, please. Would you like some tea?”

  “Sure, sounds good.” Abby stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind her, then followed Sarah to the kitchen in the back of the house.

  “I thought we might be more comfortable back here,” Sarah said over her shoulder. “I think this is the earliest part of the house, and I like it. Please, sit.”

  Abby sat and watched as Sarah boiled water, spooned tea leaves into an old pot, gathered sugar bowl and creamer. From the way she moved around the room, it was clear she had lived in this space for many years. Abby looked around. The only time she’d seen it before, it had been crowded with people, both friends and relatives of the Newhall family, and all the surfaces had been covered with food and dishes and bottles. Now it was stripped down, and Abby could admire the well-aged wood and the simple lines of the room. Finally Sarah slowed down. She set all the items on the table and pulled up a chair facing Abby and sat down.

  “Well,” she said, then seemed to stall. “It’s kind of hard to know where to start.”

  “Would you rather I started? Because I’m the one who told Ned he should talk to you.”

  “That’s what he said. Maybe we should start with where you came into this story and then work forward?” Sarah asked.

  “Okay,” Abby said. “But this whole thing was a complete shock to me, and I’m still kind of feeling my way along.” Abby proceeded to outline her first encounter with Ned, now more than six months earlier, and what they had discovered or learned together since. Sarah didn’t interrupt, but watched Abby’s face as she spoke. Finally Abby reached the present.

  “So Ned and I figured out that I was seeing people who were from the same line of ancestors, which are yours too. I’m not sure how much he saw, because he didn’t say much about it. But …” She faltered. “Just recently I saw someone he didn’t see. I mean, the fact that he said so, on the spot, started me thinking that maybe he had been seeing the others. Anyway, it kind of shook me up. I mean, I’m used to having him kind of hold my hand through this, and suddenly there’s someone he can’t share, and I’m not sure what it means or what to make of it. Does anything of this make sense to you? I mean, when you and I first met, I thought we had some kind of link, like the one Ned and I have, but you didn’t say anything and then we all got busy with Thanksgiving. And I’ll admit I never tried to contact you after that. I probably should have, but I’d only met you the once, and back then I still wondered if I was imagining things.”

  Sarah thought for a few moments before speaking. “And it never occurred to Ned that we might have something to share.” She sighed. “Oh, Abby, I think I’m as confused as you were at the beginning. I was always the sensitive one in my family, seeing things—all right, people—that nobody else saw. Everybody else in my family told me I was just oversensitive, or high-strung, or nervous—you pick a word. Nobody ever believed me, and they told me I would grow out of it. I learned pretty young not to talk about what—or who—I saw. And when I went to college, I got away from New England, to a place where I didn’t have any ties. I hadn’t really worked out the ancestor angle, so I thought, or maybe hoped, that it had all gone away.”

  “But here you are,” Abby said.

  Sarah smiled down at her teacup. “Yes. I made the mistake of falling in love with a man from Massachusetts, and I thought it would be safe to move back. It had been so long!”

  “Was it? Safe, I mean?”

  Sarah shook her head. “No.” She looked up at Abby. “Ned told me you’ve seen Johnnie Phillips?”

  “I did, that first time I was here.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I didn’t handle it well, when Ned first told me about him. I thought he was making him up. Even then Ned was kind of a lonely child, and I understood it was pretty common to make up imaginary friends for companions. And then after a while he didn’t mention Johnnie anymore, and I thought he had outgrown it. Him. But we never had a conversation about it, then or later.”

  “That’s perfectly understandable. But given what you know now, do you think Johnnie’s always been in this house?”

  “Quite possibly. Ned said he looked him up, a few years ago. This house had belonged to my husband’s family since it was built, but it was empty when we came back to move in. Before we moved in I was poking around upstairs, trying to imagine where to put the little furniture we had, and what we would need to buy, when I walked into what became Ned’s bedroom and there was Johnnie, clear as day. I knew right away that he wasn’t real, but that he had been once, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do. We’re not imagining them. But you never said anything to your husband? Or Ned, when he was growing up?”

  “I didn’t dare. With Edward I thought he’d laugh at me or decide I had mental issues. I was insecure, and I didn’t want to start all that, so I kept quiet. And, as I gather you’ve seen, there’s nothing angry or spiteful about the people we see. They don’t mean us any harm. They can’t reach out from the past and touch us, or change anything. They’re just kind of … there, I guess. Is that what it’s like for you?”

  “More or less. I don’t think anybody’s seen me, even though I see them. Ned and I kind of worked out that the ones we see, we’re seeing them at times of high stress, strong emotion. You know, like deaths, funerals, battles. It’s like it takes a certain intensity to carry through to the present, or to leave a residue. I don’t see people going about their ordinary business, plowing fields or making dinner. I see crises. What about you?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way. Johnnie’s not the only one in this house—Ned said he’d told you that Johnnie died by drowning. But there are others as well. One woman seems to have died
in childbirth, and a couple of other people died here too. Probably more, but I see only the ones who died painful deaths, not the ones who died quietly in their sleep. So that matches. I don’t go looking for them, but every now and then they’re just there. It doesn’t scare me, and it never has. But you’re the first person I’ve ever met who sees the same things.”

  “Even after all these years, you haven’t told your husband?”

  Sarah shook her head. “What would be the point? He can’t see them. He might believe me now, but it really doesn’t matter.”

  They sat in silence for a bit, sipping their tea. Finally Abby said, “What about Ned?”

  “What about him?”

  “He said he told you about Johnnie when he was a kid, and you told him it was his imagination, that lots of lonely kids made up imaginary friends. And I guess it worked, because he kind of shut down anything else like that. Until I came along, at least.”

  “You think I was wrong?” Sarah asked.

  “I really don’t know. I think he did too good a job of stifling it. He remembers seeing Johnnie, but he hasn’t talked about anyone else. Although as I said, he may have been seeing people with me but not admitting it. Or not, if they’re not lineal ancestors—our family connection goes way back. Are you descended from the Reed family?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Not that I know of. But Ned would know.”

  “It could be the Phillipses, too,” Abby said, almost to herself. “Or your husband’s line. Well, we can worry about how we connect later. To come back to Ned, I have to wonder if maybe he chose his career to try to find out more about this, at least indirectly. Not that he’s said much about what he does.”

  Sarah smiled. “I’ll let him explain it, because I can’t. But, yes, he did choose the scientific approach. So you’re saying that we’re probably related somewhere up the line, maybe through the Reed family, but the only one you both see is Johnnie?”

  “That’s what he says, but I’m beginning to have my doubts. He’d already done the research on old Phineas Reed’s descendants, so Ned kind of pointed me in the right direction and sat back and waited to see what I would do. And he or I or we kept scoring hits, which makes me think he had seen or felt something himself before. Although it doesn’t always take the same form, I gather.” Impulsively Abby held out her hand across the table. “Take my hand.”

  Sarah looked startled, but then complied. As soon as they touched, Abby could feel something. It was hard to put into words: some of it was Sarah’s personality, warm and sympathetic. Part of it felt like a low-grade electrical current buzzing between them where they touched. Like what she had felt with Ellie, too.

  “You feel that?”

  Sarah nodded. “Kind of like a tingle? It’s not unpleasant.”

  “Have you ever noticed it with anyone else?”

  “Ned, of course, but I thought that was just mother love.” Sarah smiled fondly.

  “Not your husband?”

  “Nothing like that. Wait—what happens when you and Ned … ? I mean, I assume you have, or you do … you know what I mean.” Was Sarah blushing?

  Abby grinned. “We do, and it’s something really special. But I won’t say any more. It’s like the, uh, usual, except amplified. And I have to believe that’s because we’re related, however distantly, and both our lines share this peculiar ability. You’re telling me that if it’s one-sided, it’s not the same? With your husband, I mean?”

  “I guess not. I mean, it’s good, but it’s nothing unusual. I think—I can’t say I have a lot to compare it to.”

  “Hey, I don’t either. What about before Ned was born?”

  “You mean, when he was inside? It was my first pregnancy, so I didn’t have a clue what normal was like. But there were times when I wondered, like when I’d put my hand on my belly and he’d choose that moment to kick exactly where my hand was. I could explain it away as coincidence, but it happened more than once.”

  Abby wondered what would happen if she and Ned stayed together and had children, but she really wasn’t ready to explore that. She hoped that by that future date she’d have a better handle on the whole phenomenon.

  “Did you ever read Robert Heinlein?” Sarah said suddenly.

  “When I was a lot younger, I think. Why?”

  “If I remember correctly, at the end of one of his books there’s a couple, and they have a child, and one of them makes a comment, something like, ‘He always knows exactly where to scratch my back,’ and they realize that the child may have some sort of telepathic ability. Kind of like what we’re talking about. I’d never considered that anything like that was relevant to, well, me.”

  “I’ll have to read it. So, what do we do now?”

  Sarah shrugged. “That’s up to you, I guess. I made my choice a long time ago, and I think this sort of sensitivity kind of atrophies as our brain ages. But you’re younger, and certainly more open to it. You can shut it down, if you want, or you can jump in with both feet.”

  “Where did you leave things with Ned tonight?”

  “You mean, did I say, ‘Never darken my door again, you ungrateful wretch’? Of course not. He’s been struggling with this for years, and I can see why he wouldn’t want to confide in dear old Mom. I tried to be supportive without being intrusive, and that won’t change. He can tell me whatever he wants. At least he told me about you. Although I could pretty much guess when I saw you together.”

  Now it was Abby’s turn to blush. “He’s special. I don’t know if this thing we share will bring us closer together or drive us apart. I think he’s troubled that he didn’t see or sense or feel the man on the green at Littleton. But I’ve been doing the genealogy, and I haven’t found anyone who was at that battle in Concord who was a Reed or descended from one. I think that means that the man is from my family but not yours.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “I’m not sure yet. It’s a new twist, but I’m still doing the research, mostly genealogy, in what little time I have left while getting ready for Patriots’ Day. I didn’t realize what a big thing it was around here!”

  “Tell me about it!” Sarah replied. “I have a ringside seat.”

  Abby glanced at the old clock ticking over the sink and realized it was nearly eleven. “I hate to have to end this, but I’ve got to be at work in the morning. But we can do this again, right?”

  “Of course we can. And we can include Ned, or not. I’m sure we all have a lot to learn, and at least it’s out in the open now.”

  Abby smiled. “I’m wondering if I should start keeping score. You know, Ned and I would pick a convenient place at one or the other battle sites and see who shows up—the departed ones, I mean, not the living ones.”

  “Sounds like fun. I’ll bet you that the ‘real’ ones will be the ones in the shabbiest uniforms, because they’re not just dressing up and play-acting.”

  “Good point.” Abby stood up. “Sarah, thank you. I hope you feel better about this whole thing, because I know I do. At least you know you’re not alone, and you’re not crazy. Or if you are crazy, you’re in good company.”

  Sarah stood up as well. “I’m the one who should be thanking you, Abby. And please know that you make Ned very happy. I hope everything works out between you, but I won’t butt in.”

  Sarah escorted Abby to the door and gave her a quick hug. Abby had an irrelevant thought: Sarah’s hug was cinnamon flavored, warm and sweet and kind of homey. Abby waved good-bye as Sarah waited in the doorway until she pulled out.

  12

  Abby felt a moment of shock when she pulled into her driveway close to midnight and spied a man sitting on her front steps. But she quickly recognized Ned, and she wasn’t surprised. Families were such odd things. How he and his mother had managed to avoid talking about something that was innate to both of them for so many years mystified her, but she couldn’t say she had done much better with her own family. After all, her mother had never shown the slightest interest in her
family tree, which had turned up some surprises when Abby had started looking hard at it the year before. Maybe that was because her mother’s own mother and grandmother had been so closemouthed about it. Or maybe her mother simply lacked imagination or curiosity. It was pretty clear that she hadn’t the slightest hint of any psychic ability.

  When Abby got out of the car, Ned leaped to his feet and watched her approach. Poor baby, he looked worried. What on earth could he imagine was so awful about a chat with Sarah? What deep, dark secrets could have emerged?

  “Hey,” Abby said.

  “Everything okay?” Ned asked anxiously. “You were there quite a while.”

  “Everything’s fine. Did you doubt it would be?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. It was really strange talking to Mom about this. Have you ever had that talk with your parents?”

  He had hit a sore point. “Not exactly. You know that I don’t see them much. It was all too new when they visited in the fall, and I didn’t go to visit them at Thanksgiving. And at Christmas there really wasn’t a good time to sit down in a quiet corner and ask my mother if she sees people who aren’t there. There was just too much going on. I keep forgetting that you haven’t met them, although I’ve told them about you. In a nutshell, my mother lives mainly in the present, and has no interest in any history that extends back beyond her own memory. It’s not that she’s oblivious or even self-centered—she just doesn’t care about it.”

  “Kind of the polar opposite from my family, I guess,” Ned said. “Well, I just wanted to be sure that everything was all right. I’ll head home now.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Abby protested. “Let me get the door open and the alarm disarmed and you can come in.”

  Abby fumbled with the locks—she must be more tired that she thought—and punched the keypad for the alarm, then stepped back to let Ned in. He looked uncharacteristically unsure of himself; he looked like someone who needed a hug, so she stepped forward and hugged him. They held each other silently for a time, and it was Abby who broke it off. “I really should shut the door.”