Dreams of Fire (Maple Hill Chronicles Book 1) (12 page)

Standing in her living room, Marianne turned to her visitors with her arms crossed, facing Sarah’s stern countenance. “So am I just crazy? Am I just being stupid?”

Sarah’s face softened a little, and she pushed her glasses up her nose as she said more gently, “Tell me what happened to you since you moved in.”

Marianne pushed the mattress away from the couch and gestured to the women to sit. Oscar jumped up and strolled along the back of the sofa behind them without the slightest hesitation. Marianne relaxed a little. If he liked them, they must be all right. After they’d seated themselves, she began.

A little uncertainly at first, her words spilled out as her reservations evaporated. “Well, I’ve had nightmares or bad dreams every night since I got here, except for last night. They’re not like the usual nonsense dreams. They seem very specific. There’s one about fire--I’ve had that one twice--and one about a man and a woman. He was very angry about something and hit her. Then he grabbed me—it was so real I could feel his hand on my wrist! He shouted at me about painting the office white. I woke up after that. Then one night someone played my piano. I’m not actually sure if that was a dream or if it really happened.”

Sarah was idly rolling her pendant between her fingers and looked intrigued. “Have you had dreams that were like this before? Not about those specific things but the same sense of realness.”

“Not exactly,” she hesitated, unsure whether to tell a perfect stranger her recent sad life history or not, but then plunged ahead. “I sometimes dream about things that come true or that are true, but I have no other means of knowing about them except through my dreams. Does that make any sense?” she tilted her head to one side, and Sarah nodded.

She spoke slowly, trying to articulate her thoughts. “I don’t feel like I’m predicting the future. It’s more like my subconscious is telling me about things I missed during the day or is putting clues together and telling me in dreams. I used to be married but got divorced in June after finding out my husband was having an affair with a woman at work. I kept dreaming we were in bed, but someone was lying between us. I finally noticed that he was too familiar with a particular woman at work and guessed what was up.”

Marianne added, shaking her head, “But the dreams I’ve had since I’ve been here are not like that. They are about things I’ve never seen and people I don’t know. I don’t really understand that.”

Sarah looked at Marianne like she was a unicorn that had turned up in her yard, and she didn’t want to scare her away. She rested her hands on her knees and said gently, “I think someone is trying to communicate with you using dreams. Two someones to be exact. When I walked around I could sense that there are two people here besides you.”

“Two?” One ghost was bad enough, but two? Marianne sank down onto the mattress with its rumpled sheets.

Sarah nodded. “A man and a woman. He seems to be the one who is angry about the repainting you are doing. She is the piano player and probably the one who is afraid of fire. She seems to be more anxious than anything else. I’m not sure if they were in the house at the same time, or if they were here separately.”

“That explains so much,” Marianne murmured, wonderingly.

“She’s never wrong,” Kelly said with pride.

Sarah’s brown eyes flicked toward Kelly gratefully then turned to Marianne calmly like she was telling Marianne about having termites not ghosts. At least she wasn’t telling me to pack up and leave now, Marianne thought. “So what do I do?” she said, hugging her knees.

Kelly rose from the sofa with her glass and headed back toward the kitchen.

Sarah’s hand returned to twisting the little crystal and said, “The man is angry. He’s a dark spirit, and I think he’s used to getting his way. However, it’s possible that if you stand up to him and tell him you live here now, he may leave you alone.”

She continued, “I don’t think the woman wants to hurt you. I think she is very unhappy and is trying to find help. You seem to be able to sense her, and she is trying to tell you what’s wrong through your dreams. Do you want to help her?”

“How do you know this?” Marianne said incredulously.

Sarah shrugged. “I can’t explain how I know. I just do. It’s similar to how you can tell the shape of something if you feel it with your hands. I can tell when spirits are present and can often tell what they are feeling.”
 

“That’s amazing,” Marianne said, folding her legs Indian style.

Sarah said dryly, “It’s really more of a curse than a gift. Anyway, there seem to be some particularly troubled places. The basement, the attic, and the living room are the strongest for the woman, and the white bedroom seems to be the man’s focus. Try to think of these as clues to unraveling a mystery rather than being fearful of them.”

Marianne shivered. She felt unhappy at this news. “I’ll try. Do you think we can help them? If we do, will they go away and leave the house—and me--alone?”

Sarah raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “Depends on why they’re unhappy. If you can figure it out, and help them resolve their issues, then they might move on to a happier place. You’d have the house to yourself.”

“What can I do?” Marianne felt resigned. If this were the only way to get her house back, then she’d have to do it. “I’m not a therapist. I’m an historian.”

Sarah sat back on the couch and crossed her legs. She resembled one of Marianne’s history professors assigning her a project. “Excellent. Do some research. Try and figure out who they could be. There’s a good chance they are people who used to live here. Maybe the current owner knows the history of the house and can give you some names. Go to the library and look them up in the county or town historical records. See what you can find out. Call me when you have some information, and we’ll go from there.” Sarah reached into her khaki skirt pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to Marianne.

Marianne took it and glanced at it: Smith, Wolgust and Brown, Attorneys at Law, Trusts and Estates, Family Law. Sarah Landsman, Attorney. Aloud she said with some surprise, “You work at a law office?” Somehow she’d expected “Psychic at-large. Crystal ball, palm and tarot readings.”

Sarah nodded, as Kelly returned and chimed in with a wry smile, “Yeah and ‘Smith, Wolgust and Brown’ are okay with her clairvoyant activities as long as they don’t draw much attention. So, don’t mention this to too many people.”

Marianne looked at Sarah whose expression was once again shuttered and replied, “That’s not hard. I don’t know anyone here except you guys. But, I promise I won’t tell your secret.”

“It’s not really a secret,” Sarah relented. “I just don’t talk about it a lot. People who need what I do find me.”

“Okay. In the meantime what do I do? I guess I can deal if there are spirits with unresolved issues living here with me. I suppose it’s a little like any other roommate, right? I certainly have my own issues,” she laughed weakly. “The whole nightmare thing is really keeping me from sleeping, though.”

“She’s trying to tell you something,” Sarah said, fiddling with her necklace again. “You could regard it as a way to understand her problem. Or you could tell her you understand it has to do with fire and please to let you sleep without nightmares. With the man, maybe standing up to him and being firm will work. You’ll just have to try it.”

Marianne remembered how she’d told the shadow to stop scaring her and how the feeling of the presence had disappeared. She was resolved to make the effort. “Okay, I’ll try. I found the library when I was out exploring, so I’ll go as soon as I can.”

“That’s the spirit. I said you were brave,” Kelly said encouragingly.

“Can I call you if something really weird happens…?” She let her sentence trail off hopefully.

Sarah nodded, and Kelly replied, “Sure. I work most days except Sunday and Tuesday mornings. If you need to reach me, leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” She told Marianne her cell number who put it directly into her own cell phone.

Sarah took her card back and wrote her cell number on the reverse. “Call and leave a message, if something new happens. I’ll try and get back to you as soon as I can. Otherwise, hang in there. Do your homework and call me when you find something out.” Sarah patted her arm awkwardly, got up and headed for the front door.

Kelly shot Marianne a grin behind Sarah’s back and mouthed, “She likes you!” and headed out the door after the chestnut haired woman.
 

Marianne closed the door behind them and looked at the business card again. How unusual: Sarah was a clairvoyant lawyer and Kelly was a rock-climbing hairdresser. How could Kelly tell Sarah liked her? Sarah seemed like one of those people who was better with tech and things than with people. Or maybe in this case, she was better with dead people? Marianne found herself smiling in spite of her tiredness and hoped she’d begun to make friends in her new life. She’d had only a handful of acquaintances in her solitary research life, and Geoffrey had slowly isolated her from the few she’d made since college. It would be really nice to make some new friends.

She returned to the kitchen to clean up and was reminded about the nonfunctioning dishwasher. She put in a call to Gloria’s and left a message describing the problem. Then she set about getting her bedroom in order. Sarah had said the ghostly man was upset with her painting over the dark green in the next room. At least he didn’t seem particularly upset about the room she’d chosen as her bedroom. Oscar helped keep the packing paper in line by rustling through it and pretending there were mice or other critters in it. She made steady progress emptying boxes and putting things away. Eventually she was able to drag her mattress back down the hall and up onto the wooden bed frame.
 

The pile of empty boxes in the hallway grew, and after some thought she decided to stow them upstairs for now. She’d deal with them later. She peered up the stairs as far as the first landing. There was no sound from up there. She’d only glimpsed the space upstairs this morning for the first time. It seemed to have a small room and a mini bathroom under the slanted roof of the eaves.

“Hey, Oscar, big guy, let’s go upstairs.” She coaxed the cat to the stairs and tried to convince him to go ahead of her. Perverse feline that he was, he stood and waved his crooked tail around, and then sauntered off to the couch. “Traitor,” she muttered and grabbed a couple of boxes by their flaps and made the trip upstairs alone. She made as much noise as she could, trying to feel braver.

The second floor was only partially finished. There was a dusty little bedroom and bath facing each other under the eaves with a charming dormer window in each. At the top of the stairs, there was a round window on the east side, and at the end of a short hall, there was a short, narrow door about five feet tall closing off the remaining attic space. Marianne guessed that the finished space occupied maybe half of the length of the house. Sarah had said the attic was one of the foci of spirit activity. That was an eerie thought, and even though warm sunlight poured in the windows, she didn’t feel like lingering.

The little bedroom was carpeted in neutral tones with plain white cotton curtains at the north-facing dormer window. It would make a great spare bedroom someday. For now she began tossing boxes on its floor. Noisily hauling packing materials, she made the trip up and down a dozen more times. Eventually, the boxes could be folded and stored in the attic, and the really damaged ones could probably be recycled.

Her stomach growled plaintively. A glance at her cell phone told her that it was lunchtime. It was a good time for a break, so she grabbed her purse and headed into town with her shopping list.

Finally able to materialize enough to touch things, she delighted in the cool and familiar feel of the ivory keys. To her great pleasure, she found she could play without becoming exhausted this time. Keep the fear at bay. It also kept him at bay, she realized. Even though he held her here, he was more distant when she played the piano.

Chapter 11

Michael was shooting baskets on his driveway when she returned from town. Catching the ball, he intercepted her on the sidewalk.

“Miss Singleton! I’m ready to do some more mowing.”

“I remember. Come on over.” Marianne found his enthusiasm infectious and got out the trimming tools to do some yard work as well.

He re-mowed the section he’d done over the weekend, trimming the grass down to a more standard lawn length. Then he took a first pass at the next section of long and weedy grass behind the house while Marianne worked on trimming back the wild growth of the front garden beds. She saved the best zinnias and Black Eyed Susans for the inside bouquets. They reminded her of the flower gardens her mom had around the house where Marianne had grown up, and she smiled. Setting to the cathartic work of pulling and clipping and digging, she began to uncover old bed boundaries outlined by an embedded brick border. After wrestling with the mower for an hour Michael stopped, streaming with sweat. They drank cold water and cooled off in the shade for a while.
 

“How’s basketball going?” she asked after the first few gulps of water.

He pulled off his ball cap and wiped his brow. “It’s okay. I’ve been practicing all summer so I can try out for the school team.”

“When are tryouts?”

“Soon—first week of school.”

“Good luck to you then. I hope you make it!”

He drank some more water and looked at her curiously. “What do you do?”

“I’m an historian. I do research for other people and on projects of my own. I hope to teach a history class down in the city some day.”

He drained the last of his water and looked thoughtful. “Are you also a musician?” he asked.

“No, my mom made me learn to play piano as a kid, but I never really kept up with it. Why do you ask?” she replied, puzzled.

“I coulda sworn I heard someone playing piano at your house earlier, and I thought it was you. They were really good,” he added admiringly.

Marianne felt a chill steal over her. “Are you sure it was at my house? Maybe it was a radio somewhere else?”