The Empty Desk (6 page)

Melinda called in to the shop on Monday morning once she had dropped Aiden off at school. Since Dana had asked her to come back to give her talk a little later in the morning, she wanted to open up the store and check the mail at least. Delia had offered to keep an eye on the store for her for a few hours—her staff would know where she was in the case of an emergency, and if they couldn't get her on the phone they could take the short walk from one door to the next to find her. She had a folder under her arm and clearly had work of her own to do while she was taking care of
Same As It Never Was,
and that suited them both fine. Neither of them would expect her to be run off her feet. Melinda had offered to give her a ride in that morning, but she had already made arrangements with Ned. His own car always looked as if it was about to fall apart, but it never seemed to let him down.

“Good morning,” Melinda called as she unlocked the door to the antique shop.

“Good morning,” Delia replied. “All set for your talk?”

“I think so,” she said. “Have you heard any more about your car?”

“Nope. We swung by on the way in but there was no one there. There was no sign of my car either, so I'm hoping that they have it locked up inside. Jez's son is certainly not keen on early starts, that's for sure.”

“If you can hang on here, I'll take a look on my way back from the school.”

“Sure, no problem. I don't have any appointments to take clients to view properties this morning, just a few phone calls to make and an armful of paperwork. It should be more than enough to keep me busy, even if no one comes in through the doors.” She indicated the file she had tucked under her arm, which was even larger close up. Melinda was more than happy to leave her to it.

Aiden had left the box of objects behind her seat, ready for her to take in for her talk to the children. She had meant to ask Jim what he had told their son about the old Confederate ten-dollar bill, but somehow it had slipped her mind. She hoped that he hadn't spun some tall tale that was about to be passed on to the rest of Aiden's classmates. She was making her way to the main school door, with her burden held out in front of her, when Dana waved to her in welcome.

“Perfect timing,” she said as she held the door open to allow her to maneuver her way inside. “I've just told the children that they have a visitor coming to talk to them, but Aiden has been great. Word has spread to a few of them that it's you coming in, but he hasn't told even me what you're going to talk about.”

The whole place had received a lick of paint since she had last visited the school. Pictures by the children adorned the corridor, and a notice board had photographs of the children taking part in different events over the years. They all seemed so happy, but she wondered if the child whose ghost Aiden had seen in the classroom was somewhere among them. Even if she saw her today, would she be able to find her in any of these photographs?

“This way,” Dana said, pausing to open a door. They were hit by a wall of noise from the children that immediately stopped the moment they entered. Some of the children recognized Melinda. A couple of the girls smiled and waved at her in greeting, while Aiden sat perfectly still, not letting on that it was his mother to anyone who did not already know. Whispers spread around the room as people tried to work out who she was.

“Okay, everyone,” Dana said, bringing the whispering to an end. “This is Melinda, and for those of you who don't know, she's Aiden's mother. Melinda owns the antique store in town and she's brought a few things in to talk about. Maybe she'll have something that might help us with our history project later in the year, so listen very carefully to everything she has to say.”

Melinda set the box down and glanced around the room. Every one of the faces was looking straight at her, even the little girl sitting at the desk that stood a little apart from the others, as if the piece of furniture itself was being shunned. There was no mistaking the fact that she was the ghost that Aiden had spoken to. While all the other children were in various states of excitement, the girl exuded sadness and sorrow. Melinda wanted to sit down with her and try to get her to talk straight away—she looked like she had been suffering for more than long enough—but Melinda could not do that without getting Dana to take the rest of the children out just when they were expecting her to talk to them. She had a feeling that might not go down too well.

The girl's clothes looked a little dated but not so old that she belonged to a different era. Her hair hung loose and lacked a mother's love. She was a lost child who maybe had nowhere else to go. Melinda knew that she had to help her far more than she did so many of the others who came asking for her aid. She wanted to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be all right, even though that was impossible.

Melinda opened the box as she told the children about her shop and the kinds of things she sold there. Some of the children had their pencils in hand, poised to write down anything they were told to, while others swung their feet under their desks, unable to keep still.

“I have brought a few things with me today that I thought would be fun to show you,” she said as she pulled out the first item. “Now, I know that lots of you probably like all the superhero movies, like
Spider-Man
and
X-Men,
but how many of you know when the first stories were written about these characters?”

A couple of hands went up from boys who were keen to reveal what they had to say. She listened as one boy told her that his father had read comics when he had been a boy, another said that his grandfather had a collection of old comics, and a couple of girls had similar stories to tell. Aiden had been right when he said that it wasn't just boys who might be interested.

“Some of these comics are quite old,” Melinda said and lifted out one that was held safe and secure in a plastic wrapper. She held it out in front of her so they could all see. “This one was published a long time ago, in 1974.”

“That's the Hulk!” one of the boys said. “And Wolverine!” another one shouted.

Melinda laughed, “It is—it's the first time Wolverine appears, so that's why it's special.”

A few more faces leaned forward to try to get a better look, their interest piqued. Melinda started to walk around the room, giving everyone the chance to take a look at the cover. Some were more interested than others, though. As she passed the ghost of the young girl, there was not the slightest movement. Melinda paused long enough for her to take a look if she wanted to, trying to include her in the class, but there was no response.

The needlework sampler didn't engage them in quite the same way that the comic books had, but when she explained about how a girl not much older than them had managed to create this piece of art, not with pencils but with a needle and different-colored threads, a few of the girls at least wanted to get a better look. Again she took the piece around to show them each in turn so they could get the opportunity to see how much detail had been placed on the piece of linen that was held secure in the frame.

“Aiden and I chose these two pieces from the store to show you something of the past that has managed to last somehow. We thought you would be interested in seeing them, but there is one more thing in the box that he chose himself, and I have no idea why he chose it. I guess we had better let him tell you about it himself.”

There was a moment's pause before Aiden slid from his chair and made his way to the front of the class.

“There's lots of neat stuff in Mom's store, but I chose this because it was my dad who told me what it was.” He reached into the box for the ten-dollar bill and held it out with a theatrical flourish, as if he was about to perform some kind of magic trick with it.

“A long time ago there was a war between some of the states in America. The states in the south were called the Confederacy, sometimes called Dixie, and they had their own money. This is one of the ten-dollar bills they used. There were a lot of French settlers in these states, and so instead of just having the number ten on there, it also has the letters
d,
i,
x
in the corner.
Dix.
That's the French word for ten and it's why people called it Dixie.”

It wasn't the most coherent explanation she had ever heard, but Melinda could almost hear Jim explaining this to their son. Not all of the children had quite followed what he had been saying, but they recognized that maybe Aiden was one of the smart kids, even if he might not always show it in obvious ways. Melinda was proud of the fact that he had been confident enough to stand in front of his classmates without any sign of fear and tell them what he knew. She watched as he went around the room showing everyone the bill in turn, just as she had done. He even lingered for a moment at the desk where the ghost was sitting. She looked up for a moment and smiled at him, though none of the other kids seemed to notice.

“Well done, Aiden,” Dana said when he returned to the front of the class and carefully replaced his treasure into the box before heading to his seat.

“Now I'm sure that some of you have questions for Melinda, maybe about the things that she brought in to share with us, or maybe something about her shop?”

At least half the children raised a hand in the air to show that they had a burning question that they wanted to ask. The questions ranged from “What's the oldest thing in your shop?” to “What's the most expensive?” and “Do you have any dinosaur bones?” It seemed that Aiden was far from unique in his thoughts about what constituted an antique. Some of the questions brought laughter from the rest of the class and indignation from the questioner. Melinda did her best to answer then all with a smile, taking each one seriously, until eventually the last of the hands had been lowered, their question dealt with.

“Any more?” Dana asked when the class had finally fallen silent and the fidgeting had started again. She thanked Melinda for coming in, and the children chimed in with their appreciation just as the bell rang for lunch.

“If anyone wants to take another look at the comic books or the sampler, I'll stay a little longer,” Melinda offered, and a couple of the boys paused for a moment to glance through the comics she had left out for them to examine. When the last of them had left, full of action and chatter, Melinda was disappointed to discover that the ghost had left with them.

“She's gone,” she said, without even realizing that the words had left her lips.

“She was here?” Dana asked. “You saw her?”

“She was here when I arrived, but she slipped away with the rest of the class. I was really hoping that I'd get the chance to talk to her. She was a really unhappy child, and if I had to guess, I would say that she died quite a few years ago.”

“That doesn't really help, does it? We're still not even sure what her name is.”

Melinda walked toward the desk where the ghost of the little girl had been sitting and saw the roughly scratched name in a childish hand. “Alice,” she said. “I don't have any doubt that that's her name.”

“What's she like?” Dana asked.

“Like? She's a sad little girl who is missing a mother's love.”

“But do you think you can help her?” Dana asked.

“I can only help her if she wants to be helped, and I can only find that out if she decides to talk to me.”

From outside the classroom came the sound of a scuffle and raised voices. Two boys were having a disagreement that was threatening to go beyond a little pushing and shoving and erupt into schoolboy violence.

“Excuse me a moment,” Dana said and in an instant she was in motion, opening the door and raising her voice to stop the fracas. She didn't shout, and there was no lack of control—she just increased the volume sufficiently to make herself heard above the noise. Melinda's heart leapt for a moment, worrying that Aiden was caught up in the disruption somehow, but she soon realized that this was a pair of older boys. There was no sign of Aiden in the corridor. It was clear though that Dana was in control of the situation, that she was more than capable of restoring order quickly. Teaching was more than just about filling the children's heads with facts or encouraging them to think for themselves; it was also about establishing boundaries and setting rules that they had to abide by.

Melinda retrieved the box from Dana's desk at the front of the class and took one last glance at the desk where the ghost had been sitting. There was still an empty place where the spirit had been. Melinda knew that she would almost certainly have to come back again if she was going to help her.

“That's quite a long shot,” Eli said as he poured coffee from the filter machine on top of a filing cabinet. “Have you really thought this through?”

Ned had decided that if he was going to help Melinda find out who this Alice was, it would help to run it by someone in the department at the university, and Eli James was the obvious choice. He had poured out the story in the lecturer's office while the man had sat and listened in silence. He was a friend of Melinda's and had worked with her to help spirits pass over before, and Ned knew that he could speak freely with him without causing any difficulties. That didn't mean that Eli wouldn't remind him that he was still only a student there at the university, especially if he thought he was getting ahead of himself.

“But it makes sense, doesn't it? If a ghost keeps appearing at the same place, then it must have had a strong connection with that place in life.”

“Sure. I'm happy to accept that the child must have been a pupil at the school at some time. That's a fair hypothesis. Why else would she choose that place above all others to hang out? But that doesn't mean that she died here. She could have moved away and died somewhere else, but the emotional pull might have been so strong that it brought her back here.”

“Is that possible?” Ned asked. He had assumed that ghosts remained in the vicinity of their death, but Eli seemed to be blowing that out of the water.

“I don't see why not. What does Melinda have to say about it?”

“Not a lot. She hadn't seen the ghost when I spoke to her last. She was going into the school this morning.” Ned checked his watch. “She should be there now.”

“No point in doing anything until we've heard from her then,” Eli said. “She might have resolved the situation without us needing to get involved.”

“I guess you're right,” Ned said reluctantly. He had the desire to help, even if his assistance wasn't needed. He felt like he was learning so much at the university, but he still wanted to get more hands-on experience. He wondered if he should mention the other ghost that Melinda was trying to help, the one who seemed to be haunting his mother, but thought better of it. Eli would only think that he was trying to stick his nose into places where it might not be wanted. And he could be right. Maybe Melinda wanted to take care of both these cases herself. She had not needed anyone's help for most of the time she had been doing this, and there seemed to be little chance that she was about to find herself incapable of doing it. There would be times when things took an unexpected turn or maybe needed more than one person to deal with them, but there was nothing to say that either of these ghosts was posing that kind of difficulty.

“Something else on your mind?” Eli asked as he handed over a mug of coffee.

“I don't think so,” he replied, but he could see that Eli wasn't buying it.

“Okay,” said Eli, settling into his chair. “For argument's sake, let's say that Melinda wanted your help on this. What would you do first?”

Ned leaned forward in his chair and put the coffee down. He needed both hands free to be able to express himself clearly. “To be able to help this child over we need to know why she's here, and unless Melinda can get her to talk, that's not going to be straightforward. We need to find out who she is first, or at least who she was.”

“Why?”

From the way the question was asked, Ned knew that his thought process wasn't being dismissed; it was being questioned, challenged. This was an academic exercise, and Eli was going to make him justify every step he suggested. If it was leading down a blind alley, he would say so and get him to start again, but he would allow him enough leeway to work out a path if he could.

“If we knew her name, we could find out where she died.”

“Anything else?” Eli asked.

“It might help us find out if she has any living relatives.”

“That would certainly help.”

In truth, Ned hadn't thought much further than that. He had hoped that tracking down the child's parents or siblings might help them find out what the problem was, but there was no guarantee that it would be any help if they did. Eli's expression didn't change and he remained silent, but as each second passed, the silence became more uncomfortable. Ned knew that there had to be something else, something obvious.

“We'd also find out how she died,” he said at last.

Eli nodded. He gave no indication of whether he was pleased with the answer or disappointed that he had taken so long to reach it, but he too leaned forward, putting his coffee down and resting his elbows on his desk.

“So if we know who she is, and when and how she died, how might that help?”

He was close to having a plan of action; he could feel it. If he had been off on a wild-goose chase, Eli would still have been pushed back in his chair with his legs crossed, nursing his coffee.

“The way that someone dies often leads us to the reason why they have not been able to pass over?” he suggested, but Eli's slight movement back into his chair told him that he was in danger of going down a path that would lead him nowhere or just bring him back to a point he had already covered.

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Eli asked.

Ned thought about it for a moment, then tried a different tack.

“Spirits fail to cross over for a number of reasons. Sometimes it's because they have a message they need to pass on to a loved one. It might be as simple as telling them where something is hidden, or that they love them. Or maybe they just want to say that they're sorry.”

Eli clapped his approval. “The reasons why spirits are trapped here are often emotional. There is the possibility that we may be able to find some kind of clue as to what this might be by the way that someone died. At the moment we know nothing about this ghost, other than that she died as a child, and as such her emotions will be that of a child. Something that to us may be of little consequence could have tragic proportions for a child. A lost toy could seem like the end of the world. We need to keep an open mind when we consider the possibilities.”

“Could something as simple as a lost toy be enough to trap the spirit of a child?”

“Why not? It's not impossible. Have you never seen the reaction of a child who is parted from his or her comfort blanket? There's nothing to say precisely what is and isn't possible in this line of work. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Ned.”

“I'm sure that's a quote from somewhere,” Ned said but didn't wait for Eli to confirm it. “So is there anything I've missed?”

“Well, this of course all depends on being able to discover what the girl's name is.”

“The local paper has had an online presence for a few years, so maybe a search on the Net will throw up a few possibilities, certainly enough to be able to trawl through them and come up with a list of possibilities.”

Eli opened up his laptop and keyed in his password before turning it around to offer it to Ned.

“Be my guest,” he said.