Dog Whisperer (11 page)

This was all way too confusing. It might be better if she just hadn't asked at all.

The man must have picked up on that, because he smiled at her. “You don't need to worry, my young friend. Everyone is on a different journey. Each of us finds his or her own way.”

“Aren't ghosts supposed to—go someplace else?” she asked. “A different dimension, or something?” Her family went to church and all, and she was mostly Episcopalian, but her father was Jewish, and sometimes, they went to synagogues, too. Emily had been going to Sunday school classes for years, but she was starting to wonder if she had been paying enough attention. Her parents had talked about God, and religion, and different ideas, too, but Emily wasn't completely sure what she believed, especially about things like the afterlife.

“I cannot leave,” the man said, “until I finish.”

Weird. “Um, finish
what
?” she asked.

“Peace,” he said.

Wow! “World peace?” she asked. If that was his job, he was maybe going to be busy for a
really
long time.

“I need to put things at peace,” he said.

Well, there was no reason that ghosts were necessarily supposed to make
sense
. It might even have been disappointing if an encounter with a real ghost wasn't kind of cryptic, but at least, it would have been easier to understand. Maybe she would ask him something more basic. A question with a concrete answer might be the best choice. “How long have you been here?” Emily asked.

“I don't know,” the man said. “Time is slow, and fast. What day is it?”

Standing here talking to a ghost, like it was normal—while she threw sticks for Zack to fetch—was maybe making her feel a little nuts. A situation like this shouldn't seem ordinary. “Friday,” she said.

That answer clearly made no sense at all to him. “Is it autumn?” he asked.

She nodded. “October.” Oh, wait, maybe that's what he meant by “day.” “October sixteenth.”

“What is the year?” he asked.

For some reason, that was the sort of thing she would have expected a ghost to know. Not that they would be reading newspapers or whatever, but shouldn't they have inside information? Maybe nothing worked at all the way she had imagined that it would. “2012,” she said.

He looked shocked. “Are you sure?”

Of course she was, but for a second, she suddenly doubted herself. “Well—I think so,” Emily said. “I mean, yes. Definitely.”

“I have been gone for longer than I thought,” he said softly. “Much, much longer.”

It would probably be rude to say something like “So, uh, when did you die?” But, it was the obvious question. She was afraid to ask it, though, since she would sound completely tactless.

“I would have thought that after so much time—” The man stopped without finishing his sentence. “I'm sorry, I must go now.”

And with that, he disappeared again!

*   *   *

Emily tried not to make it obvious during dinner that she was completely distracted and finding it very hard to concentrate on the conversation—or her food. At least Zack, who kept nosing at her plate the entire time, wasn't having trouble paying attention to food! Then again, hanging out with a ghost didn't seem to bother him at all, either.

Since her father had cooked the spaghetti, her mother did the dishes, and Emily helped her. Then, after her homework was all finished, she went into the den to watch television for a while.

Her father was already in there, reading the newspaper.

“Is it okay if I turn that on?” Emily asked, gesturing with the remote control.

“Sure,” her father said. “Although I like shows better when they aren't about high school students who all look thirty years old.”

Emily laughed and put on a sitcom that was usually pretty funny. Josephine immediately got up on the couch and curled onto her lap, while Zachary stretched out on the floor, resting his head on her sneaker. Emily really liked the way her pets seemed to enjoy spending time with her as much as
she
enjoyed spending time with them.

“Have there ever been any shipwrecks near the bridge?” she asked, when the first scene of the show ended and some commercials started.

Her father glanced up from the article he was reading. “Which bridge?”

Bailey's Cove had three main bridges—the cribstone bridge, which had been built with a complicated arrangement of stacked stones and was a famous landmark in town, the “big” bridge, and the “little” bridge. “The big bridge,” Emily said.

Her father shrugged. “I don't know, maybe. We could do some research about it, if you want. Do you have a project for school?”

Emily shook her head. “Not really. I was just curious.” As a history professor, her father was usually very good at remembering even the most obscure stories about past events. “Has anyone ever drowned there? Maybe someone who fell off the side and into the water?”

“Possibly,” her father said, sounding as though he was only half-listening. “But, not that I remember.”

Emily grinned at him. “Well, you
are
from away.” Which was how all of the locals described
anyone
who hadn't lived in Maine for several generations. Since her parents were from New York and California originally, they were considered even more “from away” than most non–Maine natives.

“And they'll never let me forget it,” her father said wryly. He picked up his newspaper again. “But, no, the only thing I can ever remember happening on the big bridge is the terrible accident years ago.”

Emily had been drifting off a little, but she perked up when she heard that. “What accident?”

“The car accident the Griswolds were in, when poor Mr. Griswold was killed,” her father said.

Wait, was it possible that the ghost was
Mr. Griswold
? No, that would be too weird. Besides, he seemed
nice
, so that made it even less likely. She would expect Mrs. Griswold's husband to be as unpleasant and difficult as she was. “It happened on the bridge?” she asked.

Her father nodded. “They were on their way home, and they hit some black ice, went through the wooden barrier, and ended up down on the rocks. The whole thing was really awful. It wasn't anyone's fault, but if you were behind the wheel, I think it would be very hard not to feel that way.”

Wow. There were lots of rumors around town, of course, but she had never heard those specific details before. Or maybe she had, but just hadn't been paying attention?

“Jim Peabody called me, and we went down to try and help, but there wasn't much we could do.” Her father shuddered. “That was a terrible night.”

It must have been, and Emily was glad that she hadn't been there. “Mrs. Griswold was driving?”

Her father nodded.

Okay. That meant that Mrs. Griswold had been blaming herself for all of these years—and maybe that was why she was so mean? “So, she changed after that?” Emily asked. “And wasn't friendly anymore?”

Her father waved his hand in a “no, not really” motion. “I don't know. She certainly always had a strong personality. But, she wasn't antisocial, and she never had trouble getting re-elected whenever she ran for mayor.”

That still didn't seem possible, but Emily's mother had always described her as “a superb administrator,” so that might be why she had been re-elected so many times. “Were she and Mr. Griswold happy?” Emily asked curiously.

Her father shrugged. “They certainly seemed to be.”

Which must be why, so many years later, Mr. Griswold was still unable to be at peace.

Somehow, she and Zack had to figure out a way to help him!

 

12

Emily was eager to go back to the bridge, and see if the ghost really was Mr. Griswold, but she didn't get a chance the next day because they already had plans. First, they raked some leaves in the yard, and then they drove over to the college to go to a home football game. They had season tickets, and
never
missed a game. Football wasn't Emily's favorite sport, but she liked going, because the people in the stands got so excited, and shouted and clapped and cheered every play, and it was fun to be part of that.

Over the years, she had actually learned a lot about the game, and could now usually predict when the team was going to pass or run, and could sometimes even recognize different kinds of defenses.

They also regularly went to college basketball, hockey, softball, and baseball games at Bowdoin. Her mother liked—and had played—just about every single sport that existed, so she would go watch anything, including boring stuff like golf. Emily's father played tennis once in a while, but when it came to sports, he mostly preferred just being a spectator.

Emily leaned in the direction of being a spectator herself, although a pretty
active
one, because she enjoyed sketching whatever kind of game they were attending. It was really hard to capture movement on the page, and she liked the challenge of trying to draw someone leaping for a ball, or diving for a goal, or whatever else might be happening.

She had tried playing lots of sports, because her parents wanted her to be “exposed to new things.” She didn't mind soccer, since it was an excuse to run around like an idiot for an hour, but the game itself didn't do much for her. She had been taking swimming lessons at the college for years, with other faculty kids, and she wasn't a star, but she was good enough to have been promoted to Level 5 as a swimmer, and was now working on her Level 6 skills. She didn't think she ever wanted to be a lifeguard or anything, but it would be nice to be
qualified
to do that.

Tennis was fun, but she wasn't very good. She didn't mind playing catch in the backyard, but other than that, baseball and softball were more fun to
watch
, in her opinion. Especially, of course, the Red Sox.

Bowdoin won the football game, so everyone left in a good mood. A couple of professors her parents knew were having a post-game cookout, so they went to that. Emily always tried not to make a big deal of being a vegetarian, since it sometimes made people uncomfortable, but Dr. Bougainer made her a thick grilled cheese and tomato sandwich—without even being asked—which Emily thought was really nice. She had two ears of corn and some salad, too.

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.