Sheila Connolly - Relatively Dead 02 - Seeing the Dead (27 page)

“You’re cold,” Esther said. “You should go. Wouldn’t want you to catch your death.” There was a gleeful twinkle in her eye.

Abby managed to smile in response to her joke. “I’ll come back. I hope you’ll be here.”

“Maybe. But it’s been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, young lady. Keep looking, will you?” Esther said.

“I will, I promise.” Abby turned for a moment to see how dark it had become, and when she turned back, Esther was gone.

But Abby wasn’t alone: halfway down the hill there was a child who looked a lot like Ellie. Abby shook her head to clear it, but when she looked again, the child was still there. Real? How ridiculous was it to have to ask yourself if what you were seeing was real?

Abby stood up, dusted off her pants, and started down the hill. The child didn’t move, watching her approach. When Abby got close, she said, “Hi, Abby.”

“Hi, Ellie,” Abby said. “What are you doing here?”

“Mommy’s mad. And I like it here. My house isn’t very far away—over that way.” Ellie waved vaguely toward the top of the hill.

Abby couldn’t remember how she and Ned had reached Leslie’s house, but she didn’t remember passing the cemetery. “You come here a lot?”

“When I can. Not so much in winter.”

“Why do you come?” Abby asked.

“To see Hannah,” Ellie said, and looked beyond the nearest tombstone.

Where Abby saw a child close in age to Ellie, but dressed in clothes nobody had worn for more than a century. “Can she see me?”

“Sure.” Ellie motioned to the ghost girl—Hannah, was it?—who came a little closer, then stopped. Apparently she was shy.

“What’s her last name, Ellie?” Abby asked softly.

“Perry. See?” Ellie pointed toward the closest tombstone. Abby knelt to read it in the growing dark.
Hannah S. Perry, died 1848,
she read. Reuben’s youngest daughter, who had died at the age of eight, close to Ellie’s age. Abby glanced around quickly, checking to see if there were other Perrys nearby. Were they always hovering, or did they have other places to go? It was an odd little stone, set by itself, close to the driveway that led up the hill. After reading about Reuben’s questionable lifestyle, Abby had to wonder whether the other Perrys had been buried here but no one could afford to purchase stones. She tucked that thought away for later. Abby looked up to see Hannah had crept closer and was watching her. “Hi, Hannah. Nice to meet you. I’m Abby.” That brought a smile from Hannah, although she didn’t—couldn’t?—speak.

It was nearly fully dark now, and cold. “Ellie, does your mother know where you are?”

Ellie looked at her shoes and shook her head silently.

“Did you have a fight or something?”

Ellie looked at her then, with a hint of defiance. “She said I couldn’t talk to you anymore. That’s not fair.”

“Ellie, your mom must be worried sick. Do you know your phone number?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Then give it to me and I’ll call her and tell her where you are.”

“No!” Ellie protested quickly. “Then she won’t let me come back here!”

Ellie had a point. Leslie would probably ground her for the next five years and keep an eagle eye on her, even without knowing where Ellie had been going. “I can take you home, then, but I’ll have to explain where I found you.” Ellie stared stubbornly at her. Abby knelt down in front of her. “Look, Ellie, you must have figured out by now that there’s a lot going on, and your mother doesn’t understand most of it. But it’s time to try to explain things to her. She’s going to be upset, and she’s going to be mad at me, but only because she loves you and worries about you. You’re a smart kid, and you can do this thing that most people can’t do and can’t even understand, so it may take a while before it makes sense to your mother. Can you understand that?”

“I guess.” Ellie wouldn’t meet Abby’s eyes. “But I want to see you, because you’re the only one who understands about … Hannah and the others.”

So there were others around?
But this was not the time to worry about that. “I know, but you’re going to have to be patient. I know that’s hard, but I think your mom will come around, once she gets used to it. Want me to call her now?”

Ellie nodded. Abby stood up and pulled out her cell phone, and thought for a moment. She’d had it turned off at the historical society, and she saw she had several messages, mainly from Ned. She realized that if she was going to face Leslie now, she would need his backup, so she hit the Return Call key.

He answered on the second ring. “Abby, where the hell are you?”

“In a cemetery in Littleton. Ellie’s here with me.”

“What, you kidnapped the kid?”

“No, I did not kidnap her. She was already here, and I just happened to find her. I assume Leslie’s been looking for her?”

“Damn straight she has. She’s ready to call the police.”

“I’ll take her home right now, but you should be there too. There’s a lot to talk about, and you need to know a few things.”

“I’ll meet you at Leslie’s in fifteen. And I’ll call her and tell her you’re on your way with Ellie.” He hung up abruptly.

No surprise, he was pissed off. That was nothing compared to how Leslie was going to be shortly when they showed up with Ellie. But there was no escaping it. Abby held out her hand. “Come on, Ellie, I’m taking you home. You’ll have to show me the way.”

Ellie took it. “Okay.” She turned to follow Abby, but then called out over her shoulder, “Bye, Hannah!”

Abby looked back to see Hannah give a small wave.

27

Ellie clearly knew the way home from the cemetery, even by road, and they arrived quickly—too quickly for Abby. Obviously Ned wasn’t going to arrive for a while, but she couldn’t just sit in the car with Ellie while Leslie fumed inside the house. She looked at her young companion, who had maintained a stony silence during the ride, except to issue directions.

“You ready for his, Ellie?”

“She’s gonna be mad,” Ellie said in a sulky voice.

“Your mother has every right to be mad. You’re a kid—you can’t just disappear for hours at a time without letting somebody know where you are.” Abby decided that this was not the time and place to describe the presence of real kidnappers and child molesters in the world, even in this peaceful suburb.

“I can’t tell her I’ve been going to the cemetery. She won’t understand. She’ll say I can’t go anymore.”

Abby sighed. “I know, Ellie, and you’re right. I’ll do what I can, but she’s going to be
really
mad at me, and I don’t think she’ll listen when I try to explain.” She opened her door and waited until Ellie had opened her side. “Come on, kid—time to face the music.”

They started up the walk, but the front door of the house flew open when they were only halfway there. Leslie stood silhouetted against the light for a moment, and then she rushed toward her daughter and grabbed her in a fierce hug. “Don’t you ever,
ever
do that again, Ellen Walker! You know how scared I was?”

“Sorry, Mom,” Ellie said, squirming in her mother’s grasp.

“Where were you?” Leslie demanded.

Ellie glanced at Abby quickly before answering. “At the cemetery over the hill.”

“What? Why? Were you there alone?” Leslie demanded.

Ellie shrugged. “I like it there.”

That was an answer that wouldn’t satisfy anybody, much less a frantic mother, but the explanation would have to wait. Abby squared her shoulders as Leslie stood up to her full height and confronted her. “You! What the hell were you thinking?”

Abby had little reason to believe that acting calm and reasonable in the face of Leslie’s wrath would do any good, but she had to say something. “Leslie, I was already at the cemetery, looking for someone’s stone. I happened to run into Ellie there. That’s all. I brought her here immediately.” She hoped Ellie wouldn’t mention that they’d stopped to meet Hannah, who was dead.

Whatever Leslie had planned to say next, she was forced to swallow when she looked up to see Ned’s car pull into her driveway. “Oh, sh … ortbread,” Leslie muttered. “What the hell is he doing here?” she said more loudly to Abby.

“I called him. Leslie, we have a lot to talk about, and Ned has to be part of it, and it kind of involves what happened today. Just hear us out, please?” Abby stalled long enough for Ned to reach them where they were standing on the front walk.

“Hello, Leslie,” he said. “I’m sorry for all this.”

At the sound of his voice, Ellie had turned away from her mother to face him, curiosity etched on her face. Abby watched their first interaction with trepidation. What would Ned do next? If he offered to shake hands with her, would all hell break loose? Or did whatever was in their blood call to its own, and Ellie wouldn’t need any explanation? Abby shot a glance at Leslie, who looked—scared? At this point Abby felt sorry for everyone, herself included. She had no idea how to sort any of this out.

Finally Leslie swallowed and said, “Ellie, this is Ned Newhall, a friend of mine. And Abby’s.”

Ellie was studying Ned’s face, her head cocked to the side. “Hello, Mr. Newhall. Nice to meet you.” She didn’t offer to shake hands, and Abby breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Ellie. I’m happy to meet you too.” He looked up at Leslie. “Can we take this inside? Like Abby said, we have a lot to talk about.”

Leslie wavered, as if questioning whether it made sense to bring the battle into her own home, but she couldn’t do much standing outside in the dark. “Come on in,” she said grudgingly. When they’d all trooped through the door, she said tersely, “Living room.” Once again they followed her. When they arrived, she looked at Ellie. “Pumpkin, I’m still mad at you, but the grown-ups have to talk. You want to go to the kitchen and get something to eat? Your daddy’s there.”

Ellie looked at Abby, then Ned, before replying, “Okay.” She went toward the back of the house, and Abby could hear the rumble of a male voice as George greeted Ellie. Leslie had probably told him that Ellie had been found when she got the call from Ned; how much had she said about what was to come?

“Do you want your husband to be part of this?” Abby said softly.

“Not yet. I want to hear what you have to say first. Forgive me if I don’t offer you refreshments, but I’m not in the mood to play hostess right now. You said we had to talk? So talk.”

Abby looked at Ned. He looked clueless, and she wished that telepathy had come with the package. She opened her mouth to speak, but Leslie burst out again. “I assume this has to do with that load of horse excrement you fed me the other night? About all of those special powers”—Leslie made air quotes—“that the two of you share with my daughter? You’re all on the same psychic wavelength or something, and you see ghosts. Do you really want me to believe that you didn’t drag my daughter to the nearest cemetery just to prove some sort of point? What was that damn Bruce Willis movie, where the kid says ‘I see dead people’? That was fiction, people!”

This had not started well. Abby could understand Leslie’s anger, and her disbelief; how on earth could they convince her of the reality? But she was faced with a mother tiger defending her young, and her only backup was the man who was Ellie’s biological father, which Leslie hadn’t even told Ellie yet. A man who had never met his daughter.

“Leslie, if we could just—” Ned began, but Leslie interrupted him too.

“If you say anything—anything at all—that has the word ‘calm’ or ‘reasonable’ in it, I will brain you with the first thing I grab, and it won’t be pretty.”

“Leslie!” Abby all but shouted. “Will you just shut up and listen? You have every right to be angry and upset, but you have to hear us out. For Ellie’s sake. Please?”

“So, the rabbit speaks? Okay, you have the floor.” Leslie sat back on the couch and folded her arms over her chest.

Once, in some other lifetime, Abby would have caved in the face of her stony stare, but she was past that now. “Yes, I see dead people. More and more of them, in fact. Ned sees dead people, some of the same ones I do. Not all of them. We came together by accident, but we’ve been helping each other figure this out ever since we met. We don’t have all the answers, and there aren’t exactly a lot of instruction manuals. Every time we run into a new ghost, it adds to what we know. But I know you don’t care about this stuff. What matters is that Ellie sees them too. And Ellie and I saw the same one at that cemetery over the hill this afternoon. Together.”

That comment brought a quick look from Ned, but Abby waved him off. Leslie remained mute. “We told you before, we think it’s hereditary somehow. We see only people we’re descended from, and with Ned and me, our lines intersect here and there. And not everybody who comes from the same family line sees anything at all. My mother doesn’t. Ned’s mother does.”

Abby pushed on. “So far there’s nothing that we can prove scientifically—no machine that records whatever we see, or how we react. Before you ask, no, we haven’t gone to a neurologist or a shrink to see if there is something physically wrong with either of us. Singly or together. Look, Leslie—you’ve known Ned for years. Do you think he’s crazy? I know you haven’t known me long, but do you believe I am? Or that somehow we’ve infected each other with some kind of hysteria? Or we somehow traded some mysterious virus that causes very specific hallucinations? Of people wearing out-of-date clothes?” Abby was quickly learning that getting mad felt kind of good. “Or do you think that this is some kind of elaborate scam? Although I can’t see who stands to gain anything from it. Ned plans to snatch Ellie and spirit her off to a country without extradition and raise her himself? We know you don’t have money for a ransom. What on earth do we have to gain by making this up?”

Leslie held up both hands. “Stop. Please. My head is going to explode.”

They all fell silent, and Abby could hear them each breathing. She could hear normal noises from the kitchen, the clink of dishware, Ellie’s high-pitched prattle and George’s replies, the sound of a television in the background. She had run out of words for the moment. She couldn’t blame Leslie for being skeptical, but somebody had to do something.