Page 16 of After Life
“Oh!”
“Sorry,” Sandra murmured, stepping from the house onto the porch beside me. “I thought you’d heard me open the door.” She rubbed her hands over her bare arms briskly and offered me a stiff smile. “A bit cool this morning, all things considered.”
I nodded. Small talk about weather, a cup of tea, an overcast sky... It was practically home. “The storm and all.”
She smiled tightly. “Yeah. First time?”
I nodded again, feeling like one of Ezra’s bobble head dolls. “Not a lot of call for hurricane preparedness in England.”
“Suppose not.” She slid into the chair next to mine, a wood rocker that had so many coats of varnish it felt like satin and propped her feet against the porch rail. “I didn’t know who y’all were when you first checked in,” she said suddenly. “Thought you looked familiar but just kind of figured it was one of those cases where you had a face like that, you know?”
“Ah, yes?”
“But this morning, Ray-Don mentioned those kids who help him with the salvage business, Mary and Kerry—”
“Marilla and Kelly.”
“Whatever. Said they wouldn’t shut up about you two. It got me thinking...” She fidgeted with the end of her plait and resolutely stared out at the yard, refusing to look at me. “You really see them? Not cold reading or leading a mark. You truly see ghosts and interact with them.”
I nodded. “Every day, for as long as I can recall.” There was a canned speech I had prepared for these moments, but Sandra didn’t strike me as the sort to sit through the carefully practiced, honed statements about my abilities and the show. Not without some cutting comments at least, and it was too early in the morning for me to handle sarcasm with aplomb.
Maybe another cup or two of tea first.
“And the ghosts... they talk to you.”
I waited. It wasn’t a question but more like she was working through something, deciding which way to jump with her new knowledge.
Deciding whether it was worth the risk to ask me what she really wanted to know.
“Do they come to you, the ghosts? Or do you have to... summon them, somehow?”
A small smile tugged at my lips. She reminded me a bit of Julian, asking such specific questions. “Usually people ask if I’m like the kid in that movie. Or if I can ‘bust’ ghosts.”
“People are idiots,” she said, tone flat and brooking no argument.
Very definitely reminding me of Julian, at least when I first met him. “The ghosts sometimes come to me,” I said. “Other times, they don’t even seem to notice me. Or they hide from me. I don’t force a ghost to communicate, not unless the need is dire, and even then I can count on one hand with fingers left over how many times I’ve done that.”
She hesitated then, daring a sharp glance my way before turning her attention back to the tangled vines on the pillars. “Honey Walk is a very old house, Mr. Fellowes.”
I nodded. “There’s a man here. Seems quite fond of the place. I didn’t get his name, but he spoke to me yesterday, under the stained-glass.”
She dropped her feet and sat up. “Jeremiah Tibbins.”
“Like I said, I’m not sure of—”
“No. That’s who it was.” She sounded a shade breathless. “I’m sure of it. This house was built by his ancestor, and the Tibbins family has lived here consistently until... Well, until relatively recently.” She looked as if she might burst, her cheeks turning pink with excitement as she leaned toward me. “How does it work, your mediumship? Are you clairaudient? Clairvoyant? Do you channel? Are there particular rituals you need to do in order to get into the mindset, or does it require psychotropics first? Some mediums need to enter an altered state with the use of chemicals, but I wasn’t sure if you were one of them. I admit I only saw a few clips this morning but what I did see was compelling.”
“Ah. Well, I don’t need any assistance, so to speak. And I’m a bit of everything, really. It runs in my family. We all have the ability to some degree or another.” Charlotte’s email flashed briefly to the forefront of my thoughts—We’re all blessed with this strangeness, Oscar. Embracing it is the only way to ensure you are not controlled by it but rather the other way ‘round, she’d written. Your grandmother fought it. “Some of us more than others.”
“That’s pretty amazing, Mr. Fellowes. Have you ever worked with a parapsychologist? There’s a team at the University of the Upper Coast—”
“Oh, Professor Tomlinson, right?” I sat up, setting my tea to the side. “They’ve been asking Julian to submit his CV for some guest lecturer position.”
Sandra’s nascent smile faded. “Oh?”
“Mmm. We met them at Boo Con last week and Julian was singing their praises. I’ve never worked with a parapsychologist myself, but I’ve heard good things about that group. Julian’s an anthropologist by training and vocation, and they seemed very keen about the fact his area of specialty has to do with burial practices and death rituals.”
Sandra’s expression shifted from bland to sour in a heartbeat. “Excuse me. I left the coffee on.”
