Apparition (10 page)

“Hi, Amelia. Are you … okay?” He sounds about as nervous as I feel.

“I think so. I mean, I don’t feel great about this.” Don’t feel great? There’s an understatement. I feel like Frodo about to walk into the Land of Mordor. The only reason I can even contemplate stepping back into that shadowy place is that the love of my life might be in there.
Matthew, if you really are there, let me see you. Please don’t hide from me
.

“Do you want to change your mind? We don’t have to do this,” Morris says. I get the feeling he’s not sure about it himself.

“No. No, I haven’t changed my mind. I
want
to do this. I really do.”

“Well, the number-one thing you have to remember is that if, at any moment, you want to leave, you just say so. Okay?”

I nod.

“Number two, this is only research. I just want to get a sense of the place. No seance or anything. I’d like us to look around and take note of as much as we can. If there’s enough light, I’ll take a few pictures. Then let’s get out and talk and compare notes about our impressions. Out here by the car. Then we’ll see how we feel. Sound okay?”

“Okay.”

Now all we have to do is go inside.

But standing outside the big front entrance, the door closed with a broken lock, I freeze. “Morris, maybe you should go first.”

“Yes, of course,” he says, and pushes on the wooden door.

It doesn’t want to give, so he pushes harder, and finally it moves with a creak, scraping along the dirt floor, opening up into the cavernous space.

I look in and up. There’s the smell of straw and dust. Right away, I have a flashback of Jack in the rafters, falling backwards. Lying on the ground. I grab the door frame to steady myself, hoping Morris didn’t see me swaying. He reaches into his bag, pulls out a flashlight and turns it on, though the barn’s much brighter than it was in the middle of the night. I step inside and the first thing I do is check out the frame where I thought I saw something carved. I can’t make out anything, so I motion to Morris to bring his flashlight closer. He runs the beam along the frame, stopping it at about my eye level. The board is badly marked from a hundred years of use, and there are lots of gouges and cracks and lines. But the light illuminates one
marking that’s extra deep. It looks old and worn, like it was carved years ago. But it definitely looks like
D-O-T
to me. I wasn’t imagining it after all.

Morris moves the light down a bit. It looks like there’s a plus sign immediately below, but if there was ever more to it, it’s since been crossed out with a whole bunch of what look like knife cuts.

“Maybe it was some kind of formula,” I whisper. I don’t know why I’m whispering.

Morris doesn’t say anything; he just stares at it. He tries holding the flashlight at different angles, seeing if he can make the markings stand out more clearly. Finally he hits an angle he likes and takes a few pictures, with me holding the flashlight. Then, lowering the camera, he turns around to face the inside of the barn, and I do the same. I can hear myself breathing, feel my heart beating in my chest. But so far I don’t see anything scary or strange.

We walk cautiously into the open space, looking up and around as we do. I can hear a crow or some other bird somewhere outside. A dog barks in the far distance. But there are no sounds in here except our own feet on the dirt floor. We stop in the middle of the barn and I point up to the rafters, to the beam that Jack fell from. Morris nods and stares at it for a bit, then takes more pictures.

Taking a deep breath, I turn to the wall where I thought I saw Matthew. There on the ground—just where I saw it that night—is the mysterious rope. I point it out to Morris, and he raises his eyebrows like he’s impressed. We continue to walk toward the far wall, with Morris’s flashlight dancing around corners, running along beams, scanning the loft along one side and the stalls along the other, before coming to rest on the tangled heap of rope. There’s no one here.

Morris raises his camera to his eye again and takes a picture of the rope, then makes his way back toward the barn door, but this time
he takes pictures along the way, going a step or two, focusing and snapping, then taking a few more steps. I stand with my back against the far wall and watch him, listening to the rhythm of electronic snaps and the silence in the background.

My fear has changed to disappointment. As Morris continues his picture-taking, I cast my eyes along the back wall again, seeking the rope. I shuffle closer and lean over it for a better look. It’s old but thick and strong enough to have done the deed. I crouch down and touch it, untangling it a bit. The loop that I saw Jack make is still there. I run my hand along it. It’s real, all right. I didn’t imagine it. I know this rope was below the beam when I left the barn the first time, but when I came back twenty minutes later it was here. This could be the first true evidence I’ve ever had of something supernatural.
I
didn’t move it. “So
who did
?” I whisper to myself.

“Who do you think?”

I lurch backwards so hard I lose my balance, landing flat on my backside in the dirt. Matthew is squatting in the shadows on the other side of the rope. A cold shock runs through me. Every muscle in my body wants to bolt, but I can’t move. I feel my face contorting into a scream, but nothing comes out.

“Hi, Amelia.”

Finally a tiny sound escapes me. Not a word exactly, and not a cry. More like a moan. I find my muscles and begin to move carefully, crablike, away from the rope, away from the love of my life, buried just last month in a casket in the ground. I move a few feet and then struggle to stand. I don’t take my eyes off Matthew, who’s still crouching by the rope, his dark eyes following me. I’m on my feet now, rubber-legged and shaking. I stare down at his face and try to speak.

“Did you … did you say something?” My voice is barely a whisper.

He’s looking up at me. Nothing. I’m hallucinating. I knew it.

And then: “About the rope? Yes, I moved it. I thought you’d want me to. He was going to hang himself.”

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. “Matthew?”

Silence.

“Matthew?”

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?” My eyes fill with tears.

“I think I’ve been better.”

I start crying, making a choking noise. “What happened?”

“I’m … I’m not sure.”

“Amelia?”

A hand grabs my shoulder and I jerk. I’m so startled that my knees buckle, and Morris catches me as I go down.

“Amelia, what is it? What’s happening?” Without waiting for an answer, he says, “Time to go.” He puts an arm around my waist, hooks my arm around his shoulder and drags me away from Matthew, across the barn floor toward the door, and outside into the shocking daylight.

I hear myself screaming, a sound I’ve never made before. I can’t form words. My legs are gone. Morris carries me over to the car and sits me down inside, leaving my feet dangling outside. Crouched in front of me, he waits with his hands on my shoulders, and after a few minutes I’m just bawling. When I’m only shaking, he jumps up and reaches into the back seat, pulling out a Thermos. He twists off the top and hands the bottle to me. His hands are shaking too. The Thermos stinks of cold coffee.

“I was afraid of this,” he mutters.

I take a sip of the coffee. It’s awful. I try to speak but he cuts me off.

“Amelia, forgive me. I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

“Morris …” Do I have the courage to say the words?

He’s shaking his head. “Listen, I’m playing with fire and I know it. I’m using you to do my research and it’s wrong. Your mother—”

“Morris, I think I saw a … a ghost.”

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay.” He pauses and looks down, like he’s wrestling with something big, or maybe having a heart attack. “Who do you think it was?”

I drop my head into my hands and start to cry again. Does he think I’m crazy? I don’t feel crazy. I feel pain. I feel grief. I want to go back inside.

“It was Matthew,” I whisper.

“Did he speak to you?”

I nod, searching Morris’s face. “Do you believe me?”

His eyes close for a second. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I do.”

We wait in silence for a while, me sitting sideways on the passenger seat and Morris just outside, leaning against the open door. Finally I straighten up, take a big breath and look back at the barn. I pull myself to my feet and stand beside him against the car, waiting for the light-headed feeling to pass.

“I want to go back in for a few minutes. Just to see if he’s still there. I want to ask him a few questions.” I’m trying to sound as calm as I can.

Morris presses his fingers to his eyes, then drops his hands and looks at me. “I know how much he meant to you, Amelia, but I don’t think this is worth the risk.”

“I’d like to go back in,” I say again. “I’m not doing this for you.
I
want to do it.”

It takes a few minutes for either of us to make a move. At last we walk together toward the barn entrance. Morris says he won’t stand too close to me, in case his presence interferes, but if anything intense happens he’ll pull me out of the barn again and that’ll be it.

We’d left the door open when Morris dragged me outside. Now
we stand at the entrance and peer back in. I brace myself. Matthew is still there, no longer crouching but standing where I left him, leaning against the far wall. He’s watching us.

“He’s still here,” I whisper, and try to point in a subtle way.

Morris’s eyes dart across the barn, settling on nothing. I can tell he can’t see Matthew. We move to the middle of the barn and he asks me if I’m sure I’m okay with this. I nod and he tells me he’ll wait there. He says that if I raise my hand, he’ll be at my side in a second. I nod and begin to walk, keeping my eyes locked on Matthew, approaching carefully until I’m about ten feet from him. I stop and try to take him in. He’s standing in shadow, but he looks real. He’s wearing the same clothes he wore when I saw him last, in his father’s pickup truck. He looks like he sees me just fine.

He suddenly speaks up. “Who’s that?” He’s looking at Morris.

“Oh, uh, just a writer who’s doing some research. He has a column in
The Times
. Morris Dyson is his name.”

“Is he going to take you away again?”

“I … I don’t think so. But I don’t know how long I can stay.”

“Don’t go.”

We look at each other. I feel like I’m going to lose control again, but I fight it. I need to keep my head.

“Matthew, what are you doing here?” I recall what Morris said about those ley lines. “I mean, are you stuck here for some reason? Weren’t you supposed to cross over or something?” It sounds stupid when I hear myself say it.

He seems to be thinking about that, and a rush of confusion comes over me, as if I’m picking up some feeling of intense disorientation from him. He says, “I don’t know, but I think I must have done something wrong.” His face looks clueless. That is
so
not like Matthew.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s like I’ve stopped living my life and I don’t know how to start living it again.”

I have a terrible tightness in my throat. How do I tell him?

“Don’t you know what happened? Don’t you remember?”

He shakes his head.

“I’m not sure how to say this”—I take a deep, shuddering breath—“but you died, Matthew. And everybody thinks you killed yourself.”

He frowns. “No, I don’t think so,” he says, sounding unsure.

“There was a funeral. They … buried you.”

He reacts to that with surprise, even amusement. Like maybe I’m joking. But then a wave of pain crosses his face.

I take another breath and go on. There’s no point in holding anything back. “I think you’re a ghost.” I cringe when I say that.

Now he really is amused, and he breaks out in a grin. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I have a confession to make. Remember how I always said I didn’t believe in anything? Well, I was lying. I … I believe in ghosts. I’ve even seen a few. But I guess you could say I was in denial before.”

His mouth is open, as if it’s suddenly dawned on him that I’m not just teasing him.

“The point is, I’ve seen a few, so I know a ghost when I see one.”

He looks at me hard now, and then gives a quick shake of his head. “Really? That’s”—he searches for a word—“surprising.”

“Yeah. I can imagine.” He seems to be taking the news well, but maybe it isn’t sinking in yet. Meanwhile, I want to get him to talk some more.

“Do you remember what happened to you in the barn? Anything at all?”

“Uh, just this horrible crying in my ears. At first I thought it was me, but then I lifted my head and saw this guy crying right in my
face. When he finally calmed down, I looked back behind me and saw myself standing there. With a pitchfork through my stomach. It was pretty gross. I mean, talk about internal injuries.”

His speech is slow and a little spacey, almost like he’s stoned. It hurts to hear him speak so casually about something so horrible. “You’re not the only one left with internal injuries, Matthew.”

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

He looks at me with this sad, confused gaze. I just stare back at him for a while, and then I ask, “And before that? What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Mr. Telford showing me the barn, I guess. That was a Saturday morning.”

“So you don’t remember giving me a lift that evening?”

“No. Did I?”

“Yes. I mean, I thought it was you. Sure looked like you.” I study his face, realizing that nothing feels sure. Nothing then, nothing now. “Matthew, how do I know you aren’t just some figment of my imagination? Can you prove it’s really you? Tell me something I wouldn’t already know, something you never told me before. So I can check it out.”

There’s a long pause. Then he shrugs and says, “Okay. Well, I think I’m in love with you, Amelia.”

I’m reeling. “I said something I
didn’t
know.” I’m trying to keep it light, but inside I feel like screaming.

“Oh.” He pauses, like he’s searching. Then he asks, “Can you really see ghosts? Because there’s a red-haired guy with cool wire-rim glasses over there.” He gestures toward the loft. “He could be one.”