Harbinger in the Mist (Arms of Serendipity) (8 page)

When Lindsey returned home, Aimee was sitting on the front porch reading the newspaper. “I’ll be so glad when the elections are over,” she thumped the picture of a political candidate that was displayed in color across the front page then folded the paper in half and tucked it under her leg. “I am so damned sick of all of the political bickering. They’re all full of shit if you ask me.”

Lindsey dropped down on the edge of the seat of the empty rocking chair next to her mom.

“Well… did you get it?” Aimee asked.

“Oh, yeah. It’s only part-time, but I can’t complain. And it pays a little better than the dry cleaners did.”

“Woo-hoo! I’m happy for you, girl!” Her mom took a sip of her coffee and picked the paper back up.

“Mom, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, honey.”

“When Darby introduced me to the director of the Artisans Center, she asked me something that I didn’t understand. But I think you will.”

Aimee refolded her paper and looked up. Her daughter’s tone concerned her. “OK.”

“Well, when Darby told her who I was. She, Karen that is, said something like, ‘How do you like Angela’s old house.’  Who is … Angela? I know you know.”

“Lindsey,” Aimee was suddenly emotional. “I can’t answer that right now. Just please trust me.”

Lindsey stood back up; she couldn’t sit here and listen to her mom talk to her like she was nine. But she didn’t know where she was going to go. She didn’t want to go into the house, but she didn’t want to go out and bother Maddie and Michelle, either. Maybe she’d walk down to the water’s edge and watch the birds.

“Oh,” Aimee said over her paper, her voice back to normal. “I know you left in a hurry this morning, honey, but can you remember to turn the water off next time? The kitchen faucet was running full blast when I walked in.”

“Mom, I didn’t even go into the kitchen this morning,” Lindsey turned and looked at her mother, confused.

“Well, the water was on, and I hope it wasn’t like that all night.”

“Maddie and Michelle spent the night last night. Maybe one of them washed their hands or something this morning before they left. I don’t know. I’ll ask.”

As she walked around the corner of the house, Lindsey pulled a piece of Spanish moss from a low hanging branch. Something was definitely wrong here. Things moved, doors slammed, and water faucets turned on, all without any source or reason. And she had distinctly heard both footsteps and giggles. There was only one explanation, an explanation that she would have never considered a few weeks ago – this house was haunted. As a matter of fact, she was downright embarrassed to even think it, no matter how much she knew it to be true.

It made sense, really. It was an old house, a house that was built before the Civil War. It was bound to have a colorful history… and at least one resident that didn’t want to leave.

As the days went on, Lindsey became more accustomed to the spirit’s spooky antics. It seemed fairly harmless – it never touched or hurt her. But it was certainly capable of scaring the crap out of her. It seemed to like startling her, but not her mother. Thus far, nothing out of the ordinary happened around Aimee. But with Lindsey, odd things happened more often than not. She got to the point where she didn’t flinch so much anymore when something paranormal happened. She even gave it a nickname to ease the eeriness of it all.

“Fred, cut it out!” she would say when the lights flickered or the TV turned off, or the covers were pulled off her feet.  It seemed to work, too. It seemed like the ghost just wanted to be acknowledged.

“Maybe it’s his way of saying hello,” Maddie said one day when Lindsey was ranting about not being able to find her car keys.  “Maybe Fred is flirting with you, you know, like Patrick Swayze in ‘Ghost.’ Maybe Fred is in looooove with you!” she teased.

“That is so not funny,” Lindsey warned, not in the mood for such teasing. She knew that Maddie, just like her mother, did not believe her. “Now I’ve got to use the spare set and hope that I find mine when I get home.”

It was thoroughly irritating that the freaking ghost never made its presence known to her mother or friends. Lindsey complained to her mom a couple of times, but she would just shake her head and blame the sounds on the house being ‘old’ and ‘settling’ at night. She blamed the missing items on Lindsey’s forgetfulness.

“You’re just overreacting, honey,” she said one afternoon. “This is a new town. Hell, it’s a new state. And you miss Gramma. Her death has to have you thinking about the afterlife. And this house, God it’s so big and old – it’s going to make noises that you’re not used to and those noises are going to echo. Add all that together … and well, it’s a lot for a person to absorb. You’ll get used to it soon enough and everything will be OK. You’ll see.”

As the month of June drew to an end, the town started gearing up not for Fourth of July celebrations but for a possible hurricane. The thought of being caught in such a storm scared Lindsey more now than her little friend who liked to visit when her mom was gone.  This ghost could scare her pants off, but it couldn’t blow her house away like a storm could.

“Hurricane Felicity was downgraded to a category one storm as she passed over the Bahamas yesterday morning,” the weatherman on the ‘News Now on the 9!’ news announced one evening. “She’s cruising along the east coast of Florida right now and is rapidly losing steam. Our storm projections show a much weaker Felicity moving into the Palmetto state later tomorrow.” He moved back so that an animated map with a whirling white mass could be seen fully on the screen. He moved his hands around over their part of the state on the map.

“We should start seeing clouds moving in early tomorrow morning. We project that Felicity will be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time she reaches us tomorrow evening.”

He droned on in the background as Lindsey flipped through a magazine. He encouraged viewers to “head on over to the Piggly Wiggly to get your Storm Tracker and track this year’s storms with us!” before smiling toothily at the camera and saluting the viewers.

A female anchor’s voice thanked him “for that thorough forecast.”

“Keep your TV here for constant weather updates. Up next we will –” started a third male voice, but he didn’t finish the sentence. 

It took a moment before Lindsey noticed that the TV screen was black. She looked up at her own reflection in the blank screen and then down at the remote laying on the sofa by her outstretch legs.

“Cut it out, Fred! I was watching that!” she said to the empty room. She picked up the remote and turned the TV back on.

She watched a couple of game shows, but when a generic reality show came on, she felt her eyes begin to droop. She was tired but not ready to go to bed. She hadn’t slept well in days thanks to Fred constantly uncovering her feet. So she reclined back on the sofa, shifting her legs to the over-stuffed ottoman in front of her. Perhaps a catnap would do her some good. Maddie was at choir practice and wouldn’t be home for a while. If she did take a nap, she’d be able to stay up and watch Wind Dancer with the girls later tonight. She rested her head on the back on the sofa and closed her eyes. Within minutes, she was asleep.

When her breathing evened out, a little figure moved from the corner and approached her slowly. It held out a wispy hand and touched her hair. As Lindsey lay there fast asleep, the little shadow person began to lift her hair and twist it. A second shadow moved in beside the first and a soft giggle floated gently across the darkening room.  In the corner, close to the painting Darby had hung their first day in the house, the gentle sound of humming could be heard. A peaceful, but playful calm settled inside Retreat House.

The sound of Aimee kicking her clog off by the stove woke Lindsey the next morning. 

“Nice look, homey!” she said when Lindsey stumbled into the kitchen, stretching, with one eye squinted open and the other completely closed. She was stiff from sleeping on the sofa; she must’ve been zonked to sleep so motionless for so long.  She wiped her eyes and went to the fridge to get some orange juice. Aimee was looking at her, smiling as if she wanted to laugh but was holding it in.

“What?” Lindsey finally asked. Did she have drool dried on the side of her face? A booger hanging out of her nose? She wiped her face self-consciously.

“What are you doing with your hair?” Aimee asked, her eyes alight with humor.

Lindsey reached up to run her fingers through her long, brown hair, expecting knotty bedhead. Instead of tangles, she found locks of her hair wrapped together and sticking out from her head at odd angles. She ran to the mirror in the foyer. Her hair was full of tiny, twisty braids that stuck out all over her head.

“What the hell?!” She yelled, trying to comb the tight braids out with her fingers.

“Mom! See, this is what I’m talking about. I didn’t do this and I was here alone last night.”

“Ooooh. You think the ghost braided your hair?” Humor danced in her eyes as she smiled over her cup of coffee. “Then again, that was a pretty scary sight this morning, so maybe you’re on to something.”

“Mom! I’m serious. There is something going on here, especially at night!”

“Oh, honey, I bet this is one of the girls playing a trick on you. Go upstairs, get a shower, and then go over to the barn before you go to work. Tell them it was very funny.” Aimee kissed her on the forehead and then headed up to her own room to crash.

Lindsey stomped back to the kitchen to get her juice. This was annoying. Everyone thought she was nuts. But she knew something was here. But how could she prove it? She couldn’t.

“Fred! Why don’t you do things when other people are around so that they see that I’m not crazy?” Nothing happened in response.
Maybe he’s still asleep
, she joked to herself and went upstairs to get ready for work.

Lindsey worked until a little after four in the afternoon. The Artisans Center was fairly dead and Karen blamed it on the impending storm.

“Everyone’s got to go out and buy some milk, eggs, and bread,” she joked.  “Why don’t you head home and get yourself ready for your first dose of Southern Summer weather?”

The drive home was ominous. Thick, purple clouds gathered in the sky. The dark puffs moved slowly, but menacingly, in the darkening heavens. Thunder rumbled and rolled in the distance; it came across more as a feeling than a sound. When she arrived at Retreat House, the wind whipped her hair around her face and caused the tree limbs to flap around like rag dolls, the Spanish moss on each hanging on for dear life. The air was cooler, too, and silent. The animals had already hunkered down for the coming tempest.

The weatherman said that storm would hit full force later tonight. Lindsey was glad her mom would be home with her.  Maybe Fred would give her a show tonight, too.  She tucked her chin into her chest and ran to the house without looking back at the black wall that was pushing across the sky.

A little shadow dashed across the porch when she arrived and followed her through the door like an excited puppy. It followed her up the stairs and into her room where it settled in the corner. A second shadow moved through the wall and sank down beside the first one as the thunder claps grew closer. The first drops of rain pelted the land moments later, causing the parched earth to sigh in great wisps of steam.

Six

Independence Day

Tropical Storm Felicity arrived full-force just after midnight, scourging Retreat House with sheets of violent rain and gale-force winds that shook the windows and bowed the smaller trees around the house nearly level with the ground.  For once, the view from the large window in her room was unwanted.

Lindsey had never been good with thunder and lightning, and this storm was the worst she had ever seen. She prayed it would pass quickly. Each bolt of lightning, each crack of thunder made her shiver with fear. The light show eventually became too much to bear so Lindsey took her pillow to the safest place she could think of – her mom’s room. She slithered into Aimee’s bed slowly; she didn’t want to wake her mother. As a child, there was no safer haven. But tonight not even the feel of her mother next to her helped; she tossed and turned fitfully. The lightning flashes were visible through her tightly-shut eyelids. The growling thunder and howling wind seemed amplified in the dark house. She ended up falling asleep with her pillow wrapped around her head.