Darkness Exposed (9 page)

“Upstairs,” she replied. “But it was probably nothing. Beverly Copper and her first husband had this house built for them, then they got divorced and she married Gary.”

“Well, perhaps it was built on an old graveyard,” Ian suggested, referring to the scenario from an old horror show.

Jeannine laughed. “Well, then I’d be sure not to turn the television on late at night.”

Ian thought about the irony of his situation. Here he was, lying on a coach, speaking with the ghost of a lovely woman who was hovering several inches in the air and discussing a classic horror flick with him. Life was pretty damn brilliant!

Glancing away from him, she caught sight of the window. Snow was falling and it could only be seen in the beams from the streetlights. Is that what eternity was like? She wondered. You’re only aware of the small part you’re living, but there is so much more beyond what you can see.

“When you were a child were you ever sick with something that was contagious, like chicken pox or measles?” she finally asked, turning to look at him. “You really weren’t sick anymore, but because you were still contagious, you had to stay inside.”

She walked over to the window and stared outside. “You sat next to the window, watching all of your friends playing together, and you wanted to be with them,” she said. “You could see them, hear them and even, if you were lucky, laugh with them. But you couldn’t be with them. You were always separated from them. “

Pausing, she turned to look at him. “A thin piece of glass or the thin veil between life and death, the separation is the same.”

Ian stood up and walked over next to her. “It sounds lonely,” he said.

“It is. I’m not really here with the people I love, I’m just a shadow. I haven’t moved on to be with the family and friends who have gone before me. I’m stuck in the middle.”

“Waiting for your business to be resolved,” he said. “It must be frustrating to have to wait.”

“And some have to wait longer than others,” she said sadly. “If you don’t mind, I think I’m just going to walk around a bit.”

He nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

“Pleasant dreams, Ian,” she said and faded away into the night.

Although the room was still dark, the lights from the console helped to guide him back to the couch. Laying down, he propped his head on his arm and stared out the window into the sparkling snowflakes dancing in the light. A poem he had learned in his youth came to mind. The author was Emily Bronte, but he thought Jeannine could have written the lines.

Jeannine glided slowly up the stairs to the second floor. She entered the bedroom she used to use as a sewing room and looked around. Things were as they had been eight years ago. Her favorite books still line the shelves and some unfinished craft projects sat in a plastic tub in the corner of the room. Then she turned and saw the half-finished quilt lying on the cutting table. She glided over to it and was overcome with a fresh wave of grief. She had actually talked Bradley into entering a fabric store with her because she wanted him to help her pick out the perfect fabric for their baby girl.

She had put her hands on her hips and just stared at him. Sighing, he put the bolts back in place. “Okay, where do you want me to look?” he asked.

She took his hand and let him over to the soft cotton flannels. Before he could say a word, she lifted a piece of the material and stroked it against his cheek.

“The fleece was soft too,” he grumbled, but he took the soft pink fabric and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. “But this will definitely match the nursery better.”

It took them nearly forty-five minutes to come up with the perfect combination of materials for the quilt, but Bradley was grinning at her as he carried an armload of fabric laden bolts to the cutting table. “It’s going to look great,” he said. “She’s going to love it.”

Jeannine shook her head sadly and moved away from the cutting table. She would never get to hold her baby girl in that quilt. A soft cry escaped her lips and for the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to weep for her loss.

She slowly glided out of the sewing room and down the dark hallway. She moved towards the master bedroom, but could hear Mary’s voice, so she continued on. The nursery was at the end of the hall. Could she bear to enter it and see the cans of paint sitting unused, the crib still boxed and leaning against the wall, the boxes of baby paraphernalia she had already purchased once they knew they were having a girl?

Yes! She had to see it. She had to look it over and make herself remember what happened. She had to know.

She slipped into the room, looked around and burst into tears.

Mary laid her laptop on the nightstand next to the bed and snuggled into the pillows. “I love you Bradley Alden,” she said and sighed with contentment.

Then she heard it. She sat up in the bed and listened for a moment, to be sure it just wasn’t the sound of the wind against the house. No, it was definitely the sound of someone crying.

She slipped from the bed and hurried out of the room. The hallway was dark, but there was enough light to find her way. The noise was coming from the room at the end of the hall. She hadn’t been in that room yet. Ian had placed the camera in that one, while she took the sewing room.

She placed her hand on the knob and slowly opened the door. Light from the lampposts softly illuminated the room. Mary turned and saw Jeannine seated on a rocking chair in the corner of the room. She had her head bowed into her hands and her cries were heartbreaking.

“Jeannine, what’s wrong?” Mary asked, moving forward and kneeling next to the chair.

Jeannine looked up and for a moment didn’t speak. Her translucent face was covered in tears; her body was shaking with emotion. Finally she took a deep shuddering breath. “The room is pink,” she whispered. “He still painted it pink.”

Mary looked around the room; it was painted a soft pink with white trim. A crib was set up in the corner of the room with a pink baby mobile hanging above it. A matching changing table was against another wall, a stuffed lamb propped in the corner. Shelves filled with other stuffed animals were attached to the wall across from the crib.

Jeannine nodded and met Mary’s eyes. “He’s a good man,” she said. “He might occasionally do something stupid, but he’s a good man.”

Jeannine smiled now. “Yes. Yes, we are,” she agreed. “So, friend, I want you to promise me two things. I want you to love him with all your heart.”

Mary nodded her head in agreement. “I can do that.”

“And I want you to take that baby quilt in the sewing room and finish it for me,” she said. “I don’t know why, but it’s important to me.”

“I promise,” Mary agreed. “I’ll even have my mom help me.”

Jeannine angled her head in confusion.

“Well, if I do it by myself, I have no idea what it will look like when it’s done,” she said with a smile. “I usually injure myself when I’m anywhere near a thread and needle. It’s even more dangerous than police work”

The next day dawned bright and sunny. Mary was downstairs in the kitchen sipping a can of Diet Pepsi and putting on the kettle for Ian by 7 o’clock. Remembering Ian’s appetite, she opened the cabinet and pulled out the package of oatmeal and a large measuring cup. When she closed the door, Jeannine was standing on the other side of it.

“Listen to me, Stanley Wagner, if you can’t get your body out of bed by five o’clock, then I’ll drive myself in the future,” Rosie said. “But then you won’t be able to eat half of the muffins on the way here.”

She opened the door and invited them in. “Well, thank goodness you finally made it,” she said with a grin. “I’ve been waiting for hours and I hope you didn’t eat all of the muffins.”

“That’s enough of that, Miss Sassy Pants,” Stanley said.

Rosie smiled at Mary and placed the basket of muffins on the counter. She opened up the toweling covering the basket, picked up a muffin and handed it to Mary.

“You goose, we just drove an hour to get here,” Stanley said. “The muffin couldn’t be hot. There’s something else going on.”

Jeannine looked up at Mary. “There was something about the muffin, a muffin,” she said. “I remember a muffin just before I was taken from the house.”

“What else do you remember?”

Jeannine closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on why the muffin seemed so dangerous. Finally, she opened them and shrugged. “Nothing, I can’t remember anything else.”

“Mary, dear, you’re talking to the air,” Rosie said. “Do you want me to get you a glass of water?”

Mary turned back to Rosie and Stanley who stood frozen in the same positions they had been in when she dropped the muffin. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Bradley’s wife, Jeannine, is here in the room with us.”

Rosie gasped and turned to Stanley. “She’s imagining things,” she whispered.

“No she’s not, she’s talking about a ghost,” he replied.

Rosie turned back to Mary. “Really? Is there a ghost in the room with us? I’ve never been in a room with a ghost,” she said, then paused for a moment. “Or perhaps I should say I’ve never been aware that I was in a room with a ghost, because they are invisible after all. Oh, dear, I’ve been talking about her as if she weren’t here. How rude of me.”

She walked over, stood next to Mary and then turned in the general direction of where Mary had been addressing Jeannine. “Hello,” she said loudly and slowly. “My name is Rosie and I’m a friend of Mary’s.”