Spirits in the Material World Read online

  I gave that some thought. It did actually make some sense. Although if I was a spirit trapped on our material plane I knew exactly where I’d go. The Salem Public Library. And if I were stuck there for three hundred years, with nobody to bother me, I might finally get through all their books. Especially as they kept bringing in new ones for me to enjoy.

  I gathered up my purse. “All right, then. Grab your pencils and pads. I think we’ll make a trip over to the B&B and give this a try.”

  * * *

  Prudence pulled open the door with a big smile. Her eyes were twinkling. “Come on, you two. Wait until you see.”

  She led us over to the library and rapped three times on the door. There was a scratching noise as the lock was released. Then Cassandra pulled it open. “Come in, come in. I think Sarah’s going to win.”

  We stepped in. Prudence locked the door behind us again.

  Mrs. McGillicuddy was sitting on a pillow on the center of the floor, hunched over a checker board. She was carefully evaluating the remaining pieces on it. She slid a piece forward.

  Sarah laughed in glee. She hopped her own piece forward, leaping it over Mrs. McGillicuddy’s piece. She then took the leapt piece and placed it on the side.

  Serena stared with an open mouth. “The pieces just moved by themselves! Is Sarah there?”

  I smiled. “Yes, she is.”

  Sarah jumped to her feet and ran over to stand in front of me. “Amber! You’re here! Gertie beat me last time but I think this time I’ve got her!”

  “You certainly look like you are going to win, Sarah. Congratulations! This here is my friend Serena.”

  Sarah turned to Serena and gave a small curtsey. “Pleased to meet you, Serena.”

  I said to Serena, “She says she’s pleased to meet you.”

  Serena’s cheeks went some odd combination of pale and rosy all at once. “I’m … ummm … I’m happy to meet her, too.”

  I turned to Sarah. “Serena is an artist. She wants to draw your picture. We think it might help us find your family.”

  Sarah beamed. “That is wonderful! Thank you so much.”

  I waved toward the checkerboard. “You go ahead and finish your game. I’ll describe your looks to Serena. She can’t see you herself, so I’ll have to try to explain how you look to her.”

  Sarah plunked herself back down in front of the board. “That sounds good to me!”

  Prudence took a seat in one of the leather chairs, while Cassandra pulled her stool up to the small table by the window to work on her laptop. She seemed to be delving through church records of some sort. That left me and Serena to sit side by side on the floor, me looking at Sarah, Serena laying out her papers and pencils before her.

  “All right,” I began. “Let’s start with her clothes. The main dress is floor length and cornflower blue. There’s a white over-dress.”

  Cassandra glanced over. “I thought all Puritans wore solid black dresses. They could wear blue?”

  I smiled. “Blue, brown, green, and so on. Black was actually an expensive dye color, so that wasn’t widely used. In fact, one of the charges they brought against the very first ‘witch’, Bridget Bishop, was that she wore black. They said that was inappropriate of her.”

  Sarah wrinkled her nose. “I remember a book that Gertie used to read, about a Pilgrim girl’s life. The clothing was all wrong!”

  Temptation swept over me to ask Sarah all sorts of questions about what life was really like back then. But as I looked into her eyes, I saw a deep sadness there. I remembered that my focus needed to be on finding her family. And, after all, she couldn’t even remember her last name or where she lived. Maybe her memories would return once she rejoined her parents and siblings.

  Serena asked, “Hair?”

  “Dark brown, braided and tucked beneath a white cap,” I told her. “The cap is almost squarish and is tied beneath her chin. She also has on a brown leather belt.”

  Serena bit her lip. “OK. Let’s start on the face. That’s the key part.”

  She began her questions.

  I never knew that a human face had so many attributes. The angle of the eyes. The distance between the brows. The arch. The curve of the upper nose. I was expecting eye color and lip shape. But Serena went into every last detail. She wanted to get this right.

  Slowly but surely, minute by minute, a young girl resolved herself on paper. And, to my surprise, it looked an awful lot like Sarah.

  Sarah threw her hands up into the air. “I won! I won! I beat Gertie!”

  I smiled and looked over. “Mrs. McGillicuddy, Sarah’s pretty pleased that she beat you.”

  Mrs. McGillicuddy chuckled. “Does she really call me that? Mrs. McGillicuddy? You said she played with us when we were children.”

  My cheeks tinted. “Well, she calls you Gertie. But I wouldn’t presume –”

  “If we’re going to talk with each other, I think it’s time we put formalities aside. You go ahead and call me Gertie as well.”

  For some reason the idea seemed an enormous leap. After all, this wasn’t just any woman in Salem. It was Mrs. McGillicuddy.

  I asked, “Are you sure? I mean, I could just call you Mrs. M or something …?”

  She grinned. “I’m quite sure. Say it. Gertie.”

  “Gertie,” I agreed.

  Serena held up the piece of paper. “What do you think?”

  All eyes turned to her.

  Sarah’s gaze misted. “That’s … that’s me! I’d almost forgotten what I looked like! I can’t see myself in mirrors any more, you know.”

  Gertie reached out a hand toward the paper. “Is this … is this our Sarah?”

  I nodded. “Serena is a talented artist. She captured every detail.”

  Gertie turned to the other side of the checkerboard. “Sarah, you’re so young! You must have been terribly lonely, to not have anyone to talk with all these years.”

  Sarah nodded, her eyes welling. “It made it easier, with you here. I was always so worried you might leave me.”

  I relayed the words to Gertie.

  Gertie put her hands out before her, palms up.

  Sarah moved forward and put her own hands over Gertie’s, palms down. The two pairs of hands were barely separated.

  Gertie breathed in. “I can feel it. I can feel her warmth.”

  I smiled. “That’s good. And now we have a drawing of Sarah. We just have to figure out how to get it into every single home in the Salem region.”

  Gertie’s eyes twinkled. “Is that all you need? Give me five days, and you’ll have your wish.”

  Her gaze gentled, and she looked into the empty space where a young girl sat. “And then you, young lady, will be one step closer to going home.”

  Chapter Eight

  The final envelope had been stuffed, the final set had been delivered to the post office, and at last we were done. It had taken us the full five days, but Gertie had come up with a plan of pure brilliance.

  She would hold a memorial service.

  Not just any memorial, but one to commemorate all the innocent victims of the Salem Witch Trials. The very first execution had been on June 10, 1692, when Bridget Bishop had been hung. We would hold our memorial on June 10th.

  Serena had gone above and beyond to design the invitations. The entire front showcased the drawing she’d done of Sarah. Below it, in calligraphy, she’d written: “In Memoriam.” Within, the text explained that Sarah represented all those who had suffered in Salem over the years. Those accused of devil worship, witchcraft, and a hundred other sins. Those who had passed away too young.

  Gertie had pledged to donate $5 to local charities for every photo posted on the event website. The photo needed to show the invitation on display in a local home. We also asked for any news of paranormal activity involved with the display. We asked the community to let us know if our spirit companions gave us a sense of how they felt about our efforts.

  Now we just had to wait and see.

&nbs
p; * * *

  A candle flickered in the window of the B&B’s library, and a lone reading light illuminated over Gertie’s shoulder. She was sitting in the leather chair, a copy of Little Women in her hands. Somehow Sarah had found a way to snuggle into Gertie’s lap. I suppose with her being a spirit and all, it didn’t really matter how Sarah’s transparent body overlapped with clothing, arms, or books. She’d found a way to make it work.

  The sight warmed my heart.

  Gertie read, “There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices …”

  She paused.

  Sarah yawned, then reached forward. With a motion she turned to the next page.

  Gertie nodded. “No one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.”

  Sarah’s eyes fluttered shut.

  She faded from view.

  I smiled to Gertie. “That did it. She’s been fighting sleep for the last few pages, but it finally got the best of her.”

  Gertie tucked a bookmark into the book and laid it on the end table. “I could tell by how slowly the pages were turning. I’m really starting to get a sense of her.”

  A sadness came over her face, and she looked down at her hands.

  I nodded. “It’s going to be hard to let her go, now that we’re just getting used to being here.”

  “It is,” she agreed. “I can’t believe I ever thought she was scary. She is just a young girl who is lost and confused.”

  I patted Gertie’s hand. “She’s a little less lost now. She has friends.”

  My phone blinged, and I sighed. Serena’s postcard idea had worked brilliantly – perhaps a little too brilliantly. The photos had flooded in to the website, proving that local Salem residents were more than happy to take selfies for a good cause. And along with them had come floods of reports of paranormal activities. Cereal boxes mysteriously empting out overnight. Plants mysteriously dying when clearly they’d been watered every day like clockwork.

  But nothing that made us think that a spirit had actually recognized Sarah’s portrait.

  I glanced down at the message. “Some guy Alex says he’s got news for us. Apparently around midnight last night a spirit stood in front of the fridge for ten long minutes, staring at it.”

  Gertie chuckled. “That probably happened in a third of the kitchens in Salem. I think that ties in with all the reports we’ve gotten about ‘missing ice cream’ incidents. He’d probably had four too many beers before that sighting.”

  I dragged the message into my “to be checked” folder. “Well, Serena, Cassandra, and I will keep working our way down the list. You never know. One of these reports might actually pan out.”

  Gertie’s gaze went to the novel on the end table. She gave a wry smile. “I know. And our little girl deserves to go back home. To be, if possible, reunited with her family.”

  Chapter Nine

  I walked up the front steps of the house – and groaned. The black door was centered with a silver door knocker in the shape of Samantha riding on her broomstick in front of a full moon.

  Now, don’t get me wrong. I had as much fun watching reruns of Bewitched as the next person while I was growing up. And it was nice to have a witch portrayed as a ‘woman next door’ who was helpful. It finally added a counterpoint to the centuries of malicious hags with warts and green skin and hooked noses.

  But I’d been at these interviews for three days straight, now, and some clear trends were beginning to emerge.

  Those who didn’t identify as Wiccans or pagans or other similar sorts were generally the quickest to deal with. They mostly wanted reassurance that there was no way a spirit was actually in their home. That the creaking noise was just a harmless mouse.

  Those who identified as pagans or traditional Wiccans had long-since come to peace with the idea of spirits sharing their world. They wanted to honestly help the effort. For the most part they presented, calmly and succinctly, the nature of their household spirit to be added to the enumeration. A quick cup of tea and the interview was over.

  And then there were the BeWitch group members.

  Run by local celebrity Bryane Browninge, the BeWitch coven was, in my mind, more a marketing scheme than a serious religion. But perhaps that was just my bias showing. It certainly seemed as if its members were coming into my shop at least once a week to buy one of Bryane’s latest books, or a specific type of herb from his BryaneTM BestHerbsTM line, or a new brazier because an old one had been deemed by his certified BeWitch Experts as ‘corroded by life’, or so on.

  I suppose I should have been grateful that he was generating such sales traffic for me – but it didn’t seem right.

  Still, his coven members generally seemed happy, so maybe I shouldn’t judge. Just as I probably shouldn’t judge that they all seemed to be female, between the ages of 21 to 35, attractive, complacent, and upper-middle-class.

  The black door drew open.

  The woman was perhaps twenty-five years old with long, silky, raven hair. She wore a forest-green dress embroidered with vines and leaves. At her neck was a BryaneTM BrowntagleTM, the $69.99 version, with a real emerald at the center of its Celtic knot. Her hair was held back by a BryaneTM BrownaretteTM at $89.99. That design boasted two emeralds.

  Her eyes went wide with delight. “You’re here! You’re finally here! We’ve been waiting for days to talk with you all about our spirit!” She glanced over her shoulder into the depths of the house. “Where is he? Always off somewhere else when you need them. You know how men are. Except Bryane, of course.”

  I held in my sigh. In my last meeting with one of the BeWitchers, it had taken me a full three hours to extricate myself from the house – and only then with the promise to return again around solstice time to experience the full power of their spirit’s abilities.

  Apparently Alex and his wife were part of this coven.

  I held the smile on my lips and put out my hand. “Well, it’s very nice to meet you. My name’s Amber. Amber Gardiner.”

  She scrunched her face up and laughed. “Of course you are Amber. You’re the one who’s been emailing us.”

  Apparently she wasn’t getting my attempt to draw out her name. “And you are …?”

  She giggled. “I’m Alex, of course.” She stepped aside, “Come on in. I’m sure he’ll come down in a minute.”

  My cheeks tinted. I’d assumed Alex was the guy. I should have known better. Names came in all shapes and sizes around Salem.

  I followed her around the corner and into the dining room.

  The house was done full bore Bryane. The cast iron sconces on the walls each held a hand-dipped Bryane candle. The hutch was stuffed with the limited edition series of Bryane plates, each depicting a famous witch from history. Samantha was in there, of course, but so was Jadis from Narnia, Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service, Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter, and countless others.

  It appeared Alex owned the complete set – at least as far as Bryane had currently released.

  Alex laid out translucent sapphire-colored plates for us along with two sapphire porcelain mugs. “What will you have. Coffee? Tea? Maybe some wine?”

  I glanced at my phone. It was nearly six p.m. I was both starving and exhausted. If I’d realized Alex was a BeWitch I’d have put this off until the next morning.

  “Wine,” I found myself saying.

  Alex lit up in delight, and the mugs quickly vanished, replaced by a pair of wine glasses etched with black cats. Alex poured out two glasses of richly red cabernet. Then she brought over a plate of delicious-looking cheeses, fresh grapes, and an assortment of crackers.

  My stomach growled.

  I gave a small smile. Well, if Alex was intent on chatting it up for an hour or two, at least I’d have some nice food and wine to go with it.

  She tipped her glass to
ward me. “To spirits. May they find the peace they deserve.”

  I clinked my glass to hers. “Indeed.”

  We drank.

  I smiled.

  The woman had great taste in wine. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  There were footsteps in the doorway.

  Alex glanced up. “Oh there you are, finally! Come on in and sit down.”

  I turned.

  His face seemed wrenched into a perpetual frown. From the drawn-in brows to the turned-down lips to the frustration practically wafting out of his eyes, this was one truculent man. He was perhaps six foot, dark brown hair cut nondescript, with a gray Henley top and worn jeans.

  He looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else in the universe than here.

  Alex frowned at him. “You said we’d do this together. You promised.”

  He blew his breath out.

  He moved over to sit next to Alex. He put out his hand. “I’m Marc. Marc Courtright.”

  His handshake was firm and warm. But from his face, it was clearly not his choice to call me here.

  Maybe this would be quick after all. I tossed two grapes into my mouth before pulling out my notebook from my purse. “All right, then, let’s get started.” I turned to Alex. “You say you saw a spirit in front of the fridge?”

  She shook her head.

  I blinked in surprise, re-checking my notes.

  She pointed her finger at Marc. “He’s the one who saw it.”

  I turned my gaze to Marc.

  If anything, his eyes were even more reluctant now.

  I sighed.

  I’d seen couples like this before. One was a true believer who’d gone into it hook, line, and sinker. The other was a die-hard skeptic who only believed what was right before his eyes. Add into that mix a near-cult leader who encouraged his beautiful flock to spend all their time with him, spend all their money on his products, and distance themselves from the taint of non-believers …