Waiting Spirits, Page 2

  She tried to open her eyes, and found that they were sealed shut!

  The table began to vibrate.

  It lurched forward.

  Without her willing it to, Lisa’s hand began to move.

  Chapter Two

  “Welcome Home”

  Lisa tried to make her hand stop moving.

  She couldn’t.

  “It’s working!” Carrie whispered in awe. “Gramma, it’s working!”

  “Mother!” Lisa cried. “Make it stop!”

  The table lurched again. Lisa felt faint—distant, as if she were far away from everything that was happening. From somewhere she heard her mother’s voice calling her. The words sounded as if she were speaking through a pile of pillows. “Lisa! Lisa, open your eyes!”

  Lisa tried to do as her mother told her. It was useless. She couldn’t force the lids up. Somehow, she didn’t care.

  “Lisa!”

  She sensed, with a detached sort of interest, that her hand was still rolling across the paper. Suddenly another hand slammed down and closed over her wrist. For a moment there was a tremendous struggle as Lisa’s hand tried to continue moving and the other hand, strong and sinewy, tried to make it stop.

  “Lisa, open your eyes!”

  It was her grandmother. Again, Lisa struggled to do as she was told. Suddenly she felt another moment of intense cold. She breathed out, and her eyes snapped open.

  Her hand was lying limply on the table. Circling her wrist, still tightly clenched, were her grandmother’s fingers. The pencil, now broken in half, lay on the paper.

  Lisa looked around the table. The others’ faces expressed varying degrees of shock and fear. Her mother was staring at her with nervous intensity. Carrie’s face was glowing, her eyes shining with fascination at whatever it was that had just taken place. Then Lisa looked at her grandmother and caught her breath. Dr. Miles wore an expression that fell somewhere between longing and fear. But she was not looking at Lisa. Her eyes were focused on the paper beneath her hand.

  Lisa looked down. Underneath her fingers was a set of intricate curlicues, tight and impossibly precise, more ornate than she could have ever made with her eyes open. They formed a frame around the edge of the paper.

  In the center, in large, formal letters, was the message

  WELCOME HOME!

  Lisa shivered. She knew those words had not come from her. They represented the last thing in the world she felt about this place.

  Before she could speak the lights came on. Almost immediately they went off again. It happened three times. Then there was a loud snap and the lights went out and stayed out. Dr. Miles tried the lamp standing next to her. It didn’t work. “Obviously a farewell gesture from our visitor,” she said, attempting a laugh.

  “Visitor?” cried Lisa. “Gramma, what was going on here? Was I in contact with a spirit?”

  “A ghost?” asked Carrie eagerly.

  “Mother?” Mrs. Burton’s voice was soft and worried.

  Before Dr. Miles could speak her son-in-law appeared on the stairwell. “What is going on down there?” he bellowed. “Carrie, have you been playing with the switches again?”

  “It wasn’t me!” cried Carrie, her voice full of indignation.

  “I imagine it was the storm, Martin,” said Mrs. Burton soothingly, her voice far calmer than Lisa would have thought possible under the circumstances.

  As if to reinforce her point, lightning flickered outside, followed closely by a massive crash of thunder. Judith Burton smiled at her husband.

  “Well, all that yelling wasn’t caused by the storm,” he said sharply. “Could you please keep it down? I can’t concentrate with all this going on.”

  “I’m sorry, dear,” said Mrs. Burton. “I think we’ll go shopping—get out of your hair.”

  “The price of silence,” said Mr. Burton, grumping as he always did when the subject of money came up. Lisa didn’t take it too seriously; she had figured out long ago that it was a role he played. Muttering to himself, he stomped back up the stairs and headed for the room he was using for his office.

  “Nice work, Mom,” said Carrie.

  “Hush!” said Mrs. Burton. “Lisa, are you all right?”

  Lisa stopped to think. She hadn’t had time to consider her condition since she had opened her eyes. “I guess so,” she said. “A little shaky, maybe. What happened?”

  “You tapped into the world beyond,” said Carrie, trying—without much success—to make her high, piping voice sound spooky.

  “Carrie,” snapped Dr. Miles. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “Well, how do you explain it?” asked Carrie.

  Dr. Miles looked uncomfortable. “Well, there is a distinct possibility that Lisa was having a little joke at our expense—”

  “I was not!” said Lisa indignantly.

  Her grandmother raised her hands in a placating gesture. “I’m just trying to be scientific here, Lisa. The next most likely possibility is that your subconscious mind took over. That is the ultimate answer in most psychic phenomena. When you create the right mood, part of your brain—the part that dreams—can take control and do things you are not aware of. There’s been quite a bit written about it.”

  Lisa felt a little tingle of fear. Not because of what her grandmother said, but because it was clear that the old woman was lying. Lisa could read it in her eyes, her voice, and she found it far scarier than what had just happened with the automatic writing. What was her grandmother hiding?”

  “Okay, if the message came from Lisa’s dream brain, then what did it mean?” asked Carrie.

  “It was probably sarcastic, reflecting Lisa’s unhappiness at being here,” said Dr. Miles.

  Lisa was about to object, but Dr. Miles placed her hand on Lisa’s forearm. “Oh, come now. I know how you feel about all this, dear. And I’m terribly sorry. I was being selfish when I arranged it.”

  “No, Gramma. I—”

  “Hush, child. Learn to accept an apology when it’s offered.”

  “Well, it was fun, whatever it was,” said Carrie eagerly. “Can I try next?”

  “No!”

  If Lisa had had any doubts that her grandmother was hiding something, they were dispelled by the tone in her voice when she answered Carrie.

  “Why not?” asked Carrie.

  “Because it was a bad idea in the first place,” replied Dr. Miles. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I can remember seeing something like this once when I was a girl. I had forgotten about it until now. Some people are more sensitive to this kind of thing than others—the subconscious is closer to the surface in them, I guess.”

  “You mean Lisa has a weak mind?” asked Carrie gleefully.

  “No! Now listen. It’s possible to get swept up in this and think you’re actually receiving messages from somewhere else. You’re not. It’s just a display of the power of the subconscious mind.”

  Mrs. Burton had been glancing back and forth from her mother to her daughter, as if she were trying to figure out what was going on. At Dr. Miles’s last words she said firmly, “That makes sense. Let’s put these things away.”

  Lisa and Carrie exchanged a glance. They both knew there was more going on than the grown-ups were willing to talk about. Lisa’s subconscious might have provided that message, though she didn’t think it was likely. But unless she had more powers than she was willing to believe, it sure hadn’t made the table move!

  She couldn’t wait until she could get Carrie alone, so they could compare notes.

  Between the shopping trip and dinner, it was late that night before the two girls had a chance to talk.

  “Tell me about what happened today,” whispered Carrie, when they had both climbed into the big old bed they had been forced to share.

  Lisa didn’t answer right away. The rain had stopped and their bedroom window was open. She lay on her side, watching a soft ocean breeze whisper over the sill making the white curtain flutter in a ghostly way. Finally she said, “It’s
hard to say; it was as if I wasn’t there—like I had stepped into another room or something.”

  “Do you think the message came from a ghost trying to communicate with us?” asked Carrie eagerly.

  Lisa shivered. “I hope not. I like Gramma’s explanation better.”

  “You know that wasn’t true!” said Cara fiercely. “She sure didn’t believe it.”

  “I know,” said Lisa. “That’s what really scared me.”

  “Me, too! But not as much as when the table moved. You should have seen Mom’s face when that happened! That was when I knew something was weird. There was nothing to make the table move like that. Nothing at all.” Carrie paused, then whispered, “Want to try it again?”

  “Are you crazy? Carrie, for all we know this place really is haunted. I mean, it’s old enough. All kinds of things might have happened here. You want to stir things up any more than we already have?”

  “Sure! It would give us something to tell the kids back home! Lisa, this place is so boring I could barf. At least a ghost would be interesting.”

  “You say that now. I’d like to be there the first time you actually see one.”

  “I’ll just—just…“

  Carrie’s voice faltered and her eyes grew wide. Lisa turned in the direction her sister was staring and gave a tiny gasp of fear.

  A woman had just stepped through the door. Not through the doorway. Through the door! She came gliding through the solid wood as though it were mist.

  Both girls slid up against the back of the bed. Lisa felt a cold chill shiver down her spine. The woman seemed to be made of light, a soft blue glow you could see right through. She was dressed in old-fashioned clothes. Her long hair flowed down her back. Though it was difficult to make out the details of her face, something about her was oddly familiar.

  Carrie’s hand crept along under the sheet and took Lisa’s. Lisa squeezed it, not daring to make any other move.

  “I’m scared!” whispered Carrie, huddling against her.

  Before Lisa could answer, the figure began floating toward the bed.

  Lisa put her arm around Carrie, holding her protectively.

  The woman moved slowly in their direction, looking at them intently, as if she were having a hard time getting them in focus.

  The room had become very cold.

  The woman stopped at the foot of the bed.

  “What do you want?” cried Lisa.

  The woman made no answer. The terrible cold grew deeper.

  Lisa swallowed. The woman continued to stare at them.

  No. Not them.

  She was staring at Carrie.

  Then Lisa caught a sense of the woman’s emotions. She shivered. It was almost as if she were a radio receiver, tuned in to what the woman was feeling. Suddenly she wanted to cry. The woman was radiating such strong love and sorrow that Lisa thought her own heart must break.

  The woman smiled and reached out to Carrie.

  “Welcome home,” she whispered.

  Then she vanished.

  Chapter Three

  Brian

  For a moment the two girls sat in stunned silence. There had been no aura of menace about the ghost. Yet what they had seen was terrifying. Part of what made it so frightening was the sense of having been at the edge of a great mystery, the feeling that they had been allowed a tiny peek at an awesome secret.

  “Should we go get Mom and Dad?” whispered Carrie at last.

  “I’m not sure,” said Lisa. It was strange: She knew that if she had been alone when the ghost arrived, her scream would have woken the dead—any that weren’t already up and wandering. But having someone else with you—even someone younger, like Carrie—made something like this much easier to deal with. As to rousing their parents—well, her father was far too practical and scientific for this kind of… “nonsense.” She smiled. She could practically hear him saying the word.

  Their mother might believe them. But even if she did, what could she do about it? It wasn’t as if you could go to the store and get a can of spray-on ghost repellent. The only thing she could try to do would be to convince their father to take them home. But he wasn’t apt to do that on the basis of a ghost story. And it was equally likely that he might suspect the whole tale was just a pretense to try to put an early end to the trip.

  “I think we should keep this to ourselves,” said Lisa at last.

  “Sacred sister pact?” asked Carrie.

  Lisa nodded. “Our personal secret, until our dying day, because it’s the most awesome thing that’s ever happened to either of us.”

  Carrie held out her hand in the private gesture they had created the year before, and they shook on it. Then they huddled together and stayed awake long into the night, talking in hushed voices as they waited to see if the ghost would reappear.

  But she did not show herself again, and eventually both girls drifted into a deep sleep.

  When Lisa yawned and stirred the next morning, she had the feeling that something was different. It took her a moment to realize what had changed. The sun was shining!

  She couldn’t believe it. After five days of constant rain, she had begun to feel that it was natural that the first thing you would hear when you woke was rain pattering against the windows, drumming on the roof, and pouring from the eaves. But this morning there were actually a few birds singing in the yard. All at once everything seemed a little more bearable… even the strange events of the previous night.

  She slipped from beneath the covers and went to poke her head out the window. The sun was bright on the tangled, overgrown garden. Even the sight of the ruined summerhouse with its collapsed roof and broken walls couldn’t darken her mood—though she hated it when beautiful old things were allowed to get run-down like that.

  She glanced up. The sky was gloriously clear, not a cloud in sight. She pulled her head back inside then turned and hurried down the hall to take her shower. She planned to be out on the beach early. If nothing else, she would like to have a tan to show for her summer exile.

  She wondered what Dennis was doing. Sleeping, probably. Morning was not his favorite time of the day.

  When Lisa returned to the room after her shower, Carrie was sitting up in bed, looking nervous. “There you are,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I was beginning to get worried.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” said Lisa, toweling her hair. “How far away did you think I could get in—” She stopped. The haunted look in her sister’s eyes made her stomach turn. “I’m sorry, Carrie. I shouldn’t have left you alone!”

  “It’s all right,” Carrie replied quickly. “Really. It’s just that last night was… “

  “Weird,” said Lisa, finishing the sentence. “Absolutely. I was thinking about it all through my shower. So what do you think? I know we swore as sacred sisters but maybe we should tell Mom and Dad what happened anyway… “

  “Are you kidding? They’d call in a whole army of shrinks.”

  Lisa grimaced. “That was what I decided, too. And I’m in no mood to be analyzed.” She glanced at the window. It was weird how a bright sunny day made it hard to hold on to the reality of last night’s strangeness. Turning back to Carrie, she said, “How do you feel? Are you all right?”

  “Sure. It was just a little welcoming party, right? Or maybe it was that pizza we had for dinner. Can two people have the same nightmare?”

  Lisa smiled. “No, but they can both have the same breakfast. Come on, let’s go get something to eat.”

  Their mother was standing in the kitchen when they came downstairs. “Good morning, girls! Did you sleep well?”

  “I didn’t,” Carrie said. “Didn’t you hear Lisa snoring?”

  Lisa didn’t know whether to smile or frown. Carrie was certainly acting like her old self. Maybe she hadn’t been too scared after all. Turning to her mother, she said, “I’m going to the beach today. Okay?”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Burton. “It’s about time you had a chance to get
some sunshine.”

  “I’ll come, too!” said Carrie quickly. Lisa sighed. She really didn’t want her sister along. But it wasn’t a good day to leave her alone.

  Though they got to the beach by ten o’clock it was already crowded. Looks like everyone wants to welcome back the sunshine, thought Lisa as she scanned the broad stretch of sand for a vacant spot.

  “Over there!” said Carrie.

  “Good eyes, twerp.” They made their way to the spot and spread out their blanket. Lisa slipped out of her shirt. As she rummaged in her beach bag for the tanning lotion Carrie examined her critically, then said, “You’re not in bad shape for your age.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, let’s just say that if that guy comes along again today, you shouldn’t have any trouble attracting his attention. Of course, that bathing suit doesn’t hurt. Did I tell you how mad Daddy was when he saw it? I heard him complaining to Mom the week you got it.”

  Lisa looked down and assessed herself. The red bathing suit was a little skimpy, she supposed. But no more so than those that the other girls were wearing. Of course, she knew her father’s answer to that particular point: “And if most girls were eating toad sandwiches, would you want one, too?”

  “Stop being so hormonal and put some lotion on my back,” she said to Carrie. “I want to get a start on my tan.”

  “All right, all right. Just give me a minute, will you?”

  As Carrie began to arrange her things on her towel, Lisa stretched out on her back and closed her eyes. The sun against her skin was warm and soothing, the sound of the waves a few yards away gentle, rhythmic, and wonderfully relaxing. Lisa thought she might go back to sleep and catch up on some of the rest she had lost the night before.

  “Okay,” said Carrie, “give me the bottle.”

  Lisa opened her eyes, then smiled. For Carrie, going too the beach was a major expedition. After spreading her towel neatly across the sand, she had pinned it down at the corners with carefully selected items from her beach bag. At the top was her Walkman. Next to the Walkman was a pile of comic books. And next to them were the teen fan magazines that Carrie loved. Running down the side of the towel was a revolting array of Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Fritos. Kneeling in the middle of all this was Carrie, wearing a bright yellow two-piece bathing suit, which did nothing for her. She had sunglasses perched on her snub of a nose.