The Haunted Past

by J A Whiting

  “Can you tell us a little about what happens?” Lin questioned.

  “The table used to be in the front sitting room. Its legs start to shake sometimes … it jiggles, sort of moves a bit from side to side, but fast.” Tim shrugged. “It’s almost like the table is in a house that’s experiencing an earthquake.”

  “How often does it happen?” Lin asked.

  “Lately, it’s been happening a lot. Four or five times during the day. About three times during the night. It wakes me up. It’s pretty noisy.”

  “Do you recall this happening when you used to visit?”

  “I never saw it behave this way when we visited my grandfather, but my dad told me about it a couple of times,” Tim said. “Dad told me the table sometimes wiggled and bumped around and that everyone ignored it whenever it had an episode. I don’t believe in paranormal-type things. I think there has to be an earthly, scientific explanation for unusual activity,” the young man told them. “This has me baffled though. I put pads under the legs, I moved it to different spots in the rooms, I put a rug under it. I thought it might have to do with atmospheric pressure changes, but it doesn’t seem to matter what kind of weather we’re having. It jiggles on warm days, cold days, rainy days, sunny days. Nothing matters. It still jiggles and pounds against the floor. I can’t figure it out.” Tim sighed and then said quietly, “Things seem to be escalating. It’s jiggling more often. I don’t know what to do with it. I’ve given up … for now.”

  “You moved it out of the sitting room?” Lin questioned.

  “I put it in the small room I use as a laundry room. I put a pad under it so I don’t have to hear the banging and bumping.” Tim shook his head again.

  When Lin asked if they could see it, Viv’s face seemed to pale.

  “Of course.” Tim stood and led the guests to the laundry room off the kitchen.

  It was a bigger space than Lin thought it would be with a washer and dryer, a granite counter for folding clothes, a pole between two walls for hanging clothes, and cabinetry for storing cleaning and washing supplies.

  The walnut table stood at the far end of the room, it’s tabletop tilted to the side.

  As soon as Lin had stepped into the room, she’d felt so cold inside that she almost shivered. Moving across the room, she stood in front of the table without speaking.

  Tim, Viv, and Robert watched from their spot near the door.

  One of the legs began to shake as if a heavy man was walking across the floor, the vibrations of his feet causing the slightest of movement.

  Lin watched.

  The shaking became more insistent. The jiggling of the legs making a bump-bump-bump-bump noise against the tile floor.

  Not wanting to speak aloud, she thought the words in her head.

  I’m here. I want to help you, if there’s something you need.

  Lin rested her hand on the table, and as soon as she touched the wood, a flash of icy cold ran through her veins ... and the table stopped its shuddering.

  “How did you do that?” Tim hurried over to Lin. “How did you get it to stop?”

  “I put my hand on it.” Lin’s eyes ran over the details of the piece, all the while thinking about the many people over the past hundreds of years who had seen and touched the tilt table.

  “Were the legs uneven on the floor?” Tim glanced under the antique piece of furniture.

  “I don’t think so.” Lin’s body was wrapped in a current of icy air and she took a look around the room to find the ghostly source, but no one showed themselves. Whenever a spirit materialized nearby, the freezing air would swoop around her until the ghost disappeared.

  Tim turned to Lin. “Do you think it will happen again?”

  She answered with a quiet voice. “I think so.”

  With a sigh, Tim’s blue eyes met Lin’s. “Can you take it for a while? Maybe you can figure out what the problem is.”

  Lin rested her hand on the table again. “I can try.”

  3

  Viv eyed the table in the corner of Lin’s kitchen. “Are you going to keep it there?”

  “I thought I would. Then I can keep an eye on it.” Lin was working on a home-made vegetable pizza for her and Viv’s dinner.

  Nicky, Lin’s small mixed breed brown dog, was resting on a dog bed near the screened door with Viv’s gray cat, Queenie.

  “Wouldn’t it be better in your office?” Viv spoke warily. “Maybe it would like to be by itself.”

  Lin chuckled. “A little bumping and hopping won’t hurt us.”

  Viv stood at the kitchen island making a salad to go with the pizza. “At least it’s been quiet since we got it home. Maybe it likes it here. Maybe it will stay still here.”

  Spreading the chopped veggies over the top of the pizza, Lin asked, “What did you think of Tim Pierce?”

  “He’s a lucky duck inheriting that huge Colonial house. He seems nice. He’s cute, and he’s similar to me … the fewer ghosts and odd happenings in our lives, the more we like it.”

  “Do you think he really believes that there’s some earthly explanation for what the table has been doing?” Lin took a quick glance at the piece in the corner.

  “I think he’s hoping so.” Viv gently mixed some blueberries into the green salad. “What do you think is going on?”

  “I don’t know. According to Tim and Robert, the table has jiggled like this in the past, a few times a year, often around daffodil time, but not as violently as Tim claims it’s been doing. And he told us it’s been happening regularly since he moved in.”

  “Could the table be missing Tim’s grandfather?” Viv asked. “It’s been a short time since the man passed away.”

  Lin looked up. “That sounds like a possibility except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Viv raised an eyebrow.

  “The table is an inanimate object. There has to be a ghost connected to it somehow for it to be able to move.”

  “How?” Viv asked.

  “How what?”

  “How can a ghost be connected to a piece of furniture?”

  “I mean a ghost has to be making the table move. The ghost isn’t in the table.”

  “What do you think it wants?” Viv glanced around the room with an uncomfortable look on her face.

  “I guess this is our latest mystery to solve.” Lin sprinkled some grated Parmesan cheese over the top of the pizza.

  Viv grunted. “Maybe this time, at least, there won’t be any danger of us getting killed while we solve it. But I wouldn’t bet on it,” she muttered. “Have you called Libby?”

  Lin nodded. “She’s going to try and come over in a couple of hours. She wants to see the table.”

  “Maybe she’ll want to take it home with her,” Viv said hopefully. “She might need more time to look it over.”

  “It’s staying here. If I’m going to help this ghost, I need to have the table close by.”

  Viv carried the finished salad to the table. “Can you sense what he wants? I’m assuming it’s a he.”

  “I get cold when I’m near the table, but I don’t have any idea what might be needed by the ghost.” Lin slipped the pizza into the oven and set the timer. “And why now? Why was the table fairly quiet all those years while Tim’s grandfather had it?”

  The cousins took glasses of wine out to the deck and the dog and cat padded outside with them.

  Lin’s grandfather had raised her after her parents died when she little, and she inherited her cottage from him. The house was built in the shape of a horseshoe with the kitchen-dining room at one leg of the shoe, the living room in the center, and her bedroom and a small bedroom she used as an office on the other leg of the horseshoe. There was an unfinished second floor that she and Jeff planned to build out over time once they were married and he moved in with her. A large deck had been built inside the three parts of the horseshoe and it overlooked the trees and brush of the fields behind the house beyond the stone patios.

  “So the timing o
f the jiggling table must be a clue.” Viv was stretched out on a lounge chair sipping her wine. “Why is it causing a ruckus now? What’s going on that has the ghost upset?”

  Lin was quiet as she watched Nicky and Queenie walking around in the field. “I’m going to need more information if we’re going to figure this out.”

  “I’m sure there will be a ghostly visitation very soon.” Viv didn’t look happy about the possibility. “Do you know anything about Tim’s grandfather?”

  “Very little. Robert told me the grandfather moved to Nantucket when he was in his early fifties and bought the Colonial. He owned a couple of stores in town. I think the table tapping has its connections further back in time rather than with Tim’s grandfather.”

  “But why is the ghost upset now?” Viv asked. “What’s set it off? What’s going on?”

  When the pizza was done, Viv and Lin ate outside at the picnic table and sat around talking as the sun set and the sky darkened. The air turned chilly and they were heading back inside the house when the doorbell rang.

  Anton Wilson, carrying a plate of chocolate chip cookies, and Libby Hartnett went into the kitchen to see the tilt-top table.

  Libby, an older woman with pretty silver-white hair and blue eyes, had lived on Nantucket all of her life, growing up on her family’s farm in the middle of the island. A descendant of the Witchard family and a distant cousin of Lin’s and Viv’s, she had paranormal skills of her own and had spent a good amount of time helping Lin understand the world of unusual abilities.

  “Where is the piece?” Libby spotted the item in the corner. “Has it been quiet since you brought it home?”

  “Nothing has happened,” Lin told them as she made tea for everyone. “It’s been a normal table.”

  Libby gently ran her hand over the wood. “It’s old. Mid-1700s. It could tell us a lot of stories.”

  Anton stood back slightly looking a little bit wary of the object. “It hasn’t done anything since it’s been here?”

  “Nothing,” Viv said.

  They took their tea and the cookies into the living room where Lin had lit the gas fireplace and they settled on the sofas. Nicky and Queenie rested on the rug by the cozy fire.

  “Libby has been telling me about table tipping.” Anton took a cookie from the plate.

  “What’s that?” Viv had never heard about the phenomenon.

  Libby held her teacup in her hand. “It started in the 1700s. There was a movement where communicating with spirits became popular. There was a rise in professional mediums, psychics, and spiritualists. Table tipping or table turning came into fashion. Some believed it was a way to communicate with spirits, others enjoyed it as a fun parlor game. A group of people would sit around a table with the lights dimmed. They would ask questions and the table would lift slightly and provide answers either by tapping a certain way for yes and a different way for no. Another method of use was to ask a question and allow the table to tap any number of times to spell out a word. For instance, two taps would mean the letter B. Someone would sit with a pad and pencil and write down the letters that the table spelled out.”

  Viv blinked. “It sounds sort of like a séance.”

  “Similar, yes.” Libby nodded.

  “Do you think this table is trying to communicate that way?” Lin’s heart pounded.

  “We could try it and see,” Libby offered.

  “Oh.” Viv sat up straight. “Is it safe to do this?”

  “It’s perfectly safe, my dear,” Libby said.

  “Libby thinks a ghost may be trying to send a message by using the table to tap out letters,” Anton said. “It sounds ridiculous to me, but I suppose any paranormal activity could be pooh-poohed by people. Why not try it and see what happens?”

  “What do we have to do?” Viv’s voice was shaky.

  Libby said, “We sit together at the table and place our hands on the top, palms down. We ask a question and wait to see if we receive a response. If tapping begins, the note-taker will count the taps and write down the corresponding letter. This continues until the message is completed.”

  “Can I be the note-taker?” Viv asked. “I don’t want to sit at the table.”

  “That’s fine. Shall we?” Libby asked matter-of-factly.

  The tilt-top table was set up in the middle of the kitchen and Lin and Viv brought three chairs out from the office and the bedroom and placed them around the table.

  Viv took a seat at the island with the pad and pencil on the counter.

  Anton and Lin sat down, Libby dimmed the lights, and took the third seat, and they placed the palms of their hands on the table.

  After sitting in silence for a minute, Libby spoke. “We wait for the spirit to communicate with us.”

  Two minutes passed and nothing happened.

  Libby tried again. “We are open to receiving your message.”

  They waited for five minutes and still nothing happened.

  Lin’s heart was racing when she spoke. “How can we help you? What do you need? Who are you?”

  Another five minutes passed without incident.

  Libby started to speak. “It seems….”

  A cold whoosh of air enveloped Lin … and then the table lifted a half-inch off the floor and began to vibrate.

  Lin’s and Anton’s eyes went wide with shock and Viv held the pencil in the air as she stared in horror at the piece of furniture. Nicky and Queenie sat up and watched with keen eyes.

  “Keep your hands on the table,” Libby urged with a whisper. “Don’t take them off.”

  The table shuddered and tipped a little from side to side. Its legs went down and touched the floor, then it lifted an inch and hovered there for a few seconds before hitting the floor like it had been dropped. Up it went, down it slammed. Over and over until it began touching the floor, one leg of the table at a time.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Viv stared without moving.

  “Vivian,” Libby said firmly. “Count the taps. There were five of them. The corresponding letter is E.”

  Viv shook herself. She grabbed the pencil and wrote down the letter, then listened as the table began another sequence of tapping, and then continued eight more times.

  When it was finished, the table rose two inches into the air and came down with a loud boom.

  No one spoke for a few seconds until Viv said, “I think I’m going to faint.”

  “Before you do,” Libby said, “what is the message you wrote down?”

  Viv looked at the paper like she was seeing it for the first time. “It’s not really a message. It’s a name.” She looked over at the people sitting around the table. “The table spelled out … Ezra Cooper.”

  Viv began to sway in her seat and Lin rushed to her side before her cousin could topple onto the floor.

  Holding Viv in her arms, Lin looked down at the letters written on the pad of paper.

  Ezra Cooper.

  That’s my ghost. Now what does he need?

  4

  Lin and Leonard Reed, her landscaping partner, stood at the back of his truck unloading hydrangea bushes and gardening tools. Leonard, in his sixties, had brown hair with a bit of gray mixed in and dark brown eyes. The man was tall with muscular arms and shoulders from years of doing landscaping work.

  “And then the table lifted off the floor and tapped one of its legs a number of times to correspond with a letter of the alphabet.” Lin’s arms were covered with soil from carrying the bushes out of the truck.

  Leonard frowned and stared at his partner. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I’m not. I swear, it’s the truth. The table has been jiggling and tapping in Tim Pierce’s house since he moved in. Libby got the idea to try the table tipping. Nicky was there. He saw what happened.”

  Nicky, sitting on the lawn watching the two people work, let out a yip.

  “Table tipping is a load of bunk, Coffin. People used to do it for entertainment.”

  “I know. Libby
told us people enjoyed it as a parlor game, and most of the time, it was just idle amusement.” Lin made eye contact with Leonard. “But, sometimes, it isn’t.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Leonard hauled a wheelbarrow from the truck bed.

  “The tapping spelled out a name. Ezra Cooper. We heard the taps. Viv counted them. The associated letters spelled it out. Tomorrow we’re going to the historical museum to do some research on the man.”

  “I bet you won’t find anything.”

  “Viv didn’t make up the name,” Lin protested.

  “You all got excited by the possibility that the table is inhabited by a ghost.”

  Lin put a hand on her hip. “The table isn’t inhabited by a ghost. A ghost is using it to communicate with us. I saw it tap when we were at Tim’s house. Everyone else saw it, too. Why would we all make it up?”

  Leonard made a grunting noise. “I still say its bunk.”

  Just then a blue convertible pulled over and stopped beside them.

  Heather Jenness, a woman Leonard had been dating, was at the wheel and a young woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties sat in the passenger seat. In her fifties, Heather was attractive with shoulder-length, light brown hair and pretty eyes. She owned a law firm on the island and had met Leonard at a fundraiser for the Shipwreck Museum. At first, Leonard balked at the idea of dating, but with Lin’s encouragement, he and Heather had been enjoying each other’s company over the last few months.

  “I saw your truck.” Heather gave Leonard a warm smile and said hello to Lin. “This is my niece, Lori Michaels. She’s staying here through the summer to work in my office. I hope she’ll stay even longer.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Lori had big blue eyes, sandy-colored hair that fell just below her shoulders, and a friendly smile.

  “Lori’s an attorney,” Heather said. “I need another associate so I invited her to come for a few months and try out living on an island.”

  “I’ve always wanted to live on Nantucket,” Lori told Lin and Leonard. “I love everything about the island.”

  “I was born here,” Lin told the young woman. “I lived off-island for a few years and then moved back last year. It was the best decision I ever made.”