The First Ghost

  TEH FIRST GHOST

  By MARGUERITE BUTLER

  LYRICAL PRESS

  http://lyricalpress.com/

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/

  This book is dedicated to my writing group, the Fangsters. Thanks for the endless encouragement, advice and cups of virtual coffee. No one could ask for a better group of friends.

  Acknowledgements

  I couldn't have done this without my writing group, the Fangsters: Grace, Andy, Alan, Celina, Kim, Sophie, Steve, Beth, Lori and Marla. Special thanks go to Celina, Alice and Grace for beta reading endless versions of this manuscript. Thanks to my editor, Christy Phillippe, for catching my foolish errors and making me look better than I am.

  Chapter 1

  Almost there. I could see my train and rummaged in my pocket for my pass, confident I would make it–until the whistle sounded. “No!” Hot coffee sloshed out of my commuter mug, soaking my glove. I said a few naughty words, hoisted my tote bag and ran for the train. If I missed this one, I would be at least fifteen minutes late, and like they say, failure was not an option. My boss had zero sense of humor about tardiness and I was not crawling back to the family business.

  This was about more than pride. We’re not talking about plumbing or insurance or even running a store. My family owns and operates Mahaffey-Ringold Funeral Home, proudly tending to your corpses since 1942. But not me. No way, no how. I was the family freak and I liked it that way.

  All the Mahaffey women were clairvoyant. My mother saw spirits. My cousin Eleanor relived the last moments of death from personal objects. Her sister communed with the dead in Europe. My aunt saw visions of the past and occasionally even the future. I was the only woman without some sort of “gift.” No dead people or spooky visions for me. Nope. Just a nice apartment and a decent day job, which I was about to lose if I didn’t get on that train.

  I focused on finding my rail pass without dropping my coffee or tote bag and trying to run in heels. I didn’t pay attention to where I was going.

  Wham! Headfirst.

  I laid there on the ground for a moment, stunned. “Ow.” I sat up and rubbed my temple.

  “You okay?” somebody called.

  I waved them off. “Fine. Only thing hurt is my pride.” Which wasn’t strictly true. Both my knees and my head hurt. I’d wiped out hard. My pants weren’t torn, but the fabric on the knees was damaged. I located my steel mug, which had leaked most of its precious coffee into a brown pool on the concrete.

  Staggering to my feet, I stepped right into a slushy puddle. My heel caught in a crack in the pavement. Now both my gloved hand and my foot were freezing. I swore a little more and tugged at my foot, trying to free my stiletto from the crevice.

  The train whistle sounded again. I looked up in panic. The last whistle meant I had two minutes to board that train. At the moment that seemed vitally important.

  Then everything in my life changed.

  The air became electric, super-charged the way it does just before a storm hits, even though there were no hurricanes bearing down on Dallas. The hair on my arms stood on end, and not from the cold. A current hummed through me. My vision sharpened. Things looked different, like the world had suddenly snapped into focus. It was as if I’d put on a pair of new glasses.

  A tiny, older gentleman with a head of wild, white hair like Einstein stood on the tracks in front of the train. He worried and twisted a hat as he stared up at the yellow engine.

  How the heck had he gotten down there? Did he jump the railing? Was he confused? Other tardy commuters ran for the train in a mad scramble, ignoring the man on the tracks.

  I tugged again on my shoe.

  “Hey! Get off the track!” I yelled at him. “That train’s about to move!” It was about to move without me on it.

  The man ignored me. The whistle blasted a third time and the train rolled forward. I dropped my tote and my mug, which rolled down into a gutter. “Hey!” I waved my arms in desperation. “Get off the track! Hey! You! Old guy!” The little man turned to look at me, but he didn’t move, just kept twisting that hat. What the hell was wrong with him? “Move!” I screamed.

  The train picked up speed. “Somebody! Stop! Stop!” People looked now, but not at the man on the tracks. They edged away, giving me sideways looks. “Can’t you see him? He’s going to get run over! He’s–”

  I turned away with a sharp cry, unwilling to look. I don’t know what I expected, but I expected something to happen. I thought there would be screaming and horror as people realized what had just happened. I thought the brakes would screech. I even thought I might hear the train hit him, but instead it slowly rumbled out of the station.

  I stepped out of the stiletto still trapped in the puddled crevice and scanned the tracks for carnage.

  Nothing.

  Unless of course you considered the people staring at me. I locked eyes with a man, but he averted his and moved away.

  “Pardon me, miss. Have you seen my mother?” I turned to the voice that came from right next to my ear. The same little man from the tracks, apparently unharmed, stood at my elbow.

  I reached out to grab his coat and swiped my hand right through him. “What the–” I took a startled step back with the foot still wearing a stiletto, overbalanced and fell. My head made contact with the concrete for a second time that morning and everything went black.

  * * * *

  I hurt all over, especially my head.

  I didn’t want to open my eyes, but I had to look around. Bright. I blinked to clear the fuzziness. All I saw was industrial white and green. Curtains. Machines. Beds. Someone lay in the next bed, but her face was turned the other way.

  The woman sitting on the edge of my roommate’s bed had to be at least a hundred years old. She had wrinkles on her wrinkles and a huge mound of teased and sprayed hair colored an improbable shade of blue. She wore the official senior uniform of a hot pink velour tracksuit and a bored expression. She looked around like she was waiting for something.

  “Where am I?” I knew I was in a hospital. What I meant was: What hospital am I in and how did I get here? But I could only manage a few words.

  The woman looked right at me, but she didn’t answer.

  How rude.

  I tried again. “What hospital is this?”

  She looked more intently at me. “Can you see me?”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  She patted her fluffy hair helmet. “Well, la-de-da. I thought I was in invisible mode. Must have been the blow to your head.”

  Which explained my headache, but not the harpy. She looked down at the lump of bedclothes. “Wait here,” she said to the motionless figure. “I’ll be back.”

  I blinked because she suddenly stood right next to me and I hadn’t seen her move.

  “Ow!” I cried out. “You pinched me.”

  “You really can see me. And feel me, too.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Not yet, doll. First you tell me your name.”

  My head hurt too much to argue. “Portia. Portia Mahaffey.”

  “Ohhh.” Her voice trailed off into a coughing fit. “That explains it. You’re one of those Mahaffeys, aren’t you? You must be Imogene’s daughter.”

  “Do I know you?”

  She laughed again. “No, doll, but I know your mother real well. We talk all the time.” She patted my arm. “Your mother said you didn’t have the gift, but it looks like she was wrong.”

  I stared at her. Mother never talked about the family gifts. Ever. “How do you know about that?”

  “I know lots of stuff, honey. I’m Death. But you can call me Hephzibah. Pleased to meet you.”

  I closed my eyes, hopin
g she would be gone when I opened them.

  This was a bad dream. I’d suffered a blow to the head. I was obviously hallucinating. With my eyes closed, the throbbing in my head worsened. I opened them gingerly.

  “Boo.”

  Hephzibah was real.

  “We’re gonna be good friends,” she said. “I can tell. I should have known you were Imogene’s kid. You look like her. Red hair and all them freckles. Don’t you ever get any sun? That skin could use a little color to it. So when did you first start seeing spirits?”

  “Is that what you are? A spirit?”

  “More or less. I’m Death. Sort of an escort for the dead, a guide if you will, to the other side. I cross people over. So when did your gift finally arrive?”

  I squinted at the clock hanging on the opposite wall. “Ten minutes ago? Maybe fifteen? I think. I’m not really sure.” My hands shook and I fought the urge to bury my head under the covers. I was too old. The Mahaffey gift always arrived with the first agonies of puberty. This couldn’t be happening.

  Hephzibah whistled. “Brand spanking new, huh? Better get ready. Hospitals are chock-full of spirits.”

  “So far you’re all I’ve seen. Maybe I won’t really see ghosts.”

  “You will.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “If you see me, you’ll see ghosts. Trust me on this one, doll. So are you single? Married?”

  “Single. Why are you here?”

  “Oh, I’m just waiting. Business call, so to speak.” She tilted her head in the direction of the neighboring bed. “I got here a little early. Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the time.”

  “He’s dying?”

  “She. Any minute now.”

  It was a sobering thought. “That’s so sad.”

  “Yeah, it’s a real kick in the pants.”

  “How did she...I mean will she...I mean...what...”

  “Her? Murder. Sad, really. She’s pretty young. Younger than you even.”

  “Isn’t her family here? Shouldn’t they be with her?”

  “She ain’t got any family, unless you count an aunt in Omaha.”

  “What about friends? She shouldn’t die alone.”

  Hephzibah shook her head. “Just you and me, kid. She ain’t got nobody else.”

  The machine that had been softly beeping next to the woman’s bed screeched. My headache flared like someone had stabbed me behind the eyes with an ice pick.

  “There we go,” Hephzibah said. “About damn time.” She popped a stick of gum in her mouth.

  The room exploded into activity as nurses and doctors swarmed the room, trying to revive my roommate. I could have told them the outcome.

  Someone closed the curtain separating our beds. Hephzibah continued staring, like she could see through it.

  Of course my mother picked this moment to walk into the room. When she spied Hephzibah standing by my bed, she dropped the cheerful vase of flowers, which landed with a crash.

  “No! No! My baby,” she wailed and collapsed in a crumpled heap.

  “I’m okay, Mother.”

  “Imogene? Portia’s okay, honey.” My stepfather, Walter, helped Mother struggle to her feet. “See? It’s just a bump on the head.”

  “Hiya, Imogene. Sorry to scare you like that,” Hephzibah said with a grin. “I’m not here for your girl. We was just having a nice chat. Oops, gotta go. It’s been real.” And just like that she walked through the curtain and out of sight.

  Mother gave me a shrewd look and ordered Walter down to the gift shop to buy more flowers, drowning out his protests. “Because, darling, Portia needs flowers to brighten up the room. Don’t you, Portia? See? Off you go.”

  Mother is so fanatical about keeping the family’s psychic gifts private that she’s never revealed it to Walter, not in twenty-three years of marriage. Even my brother doesn’t know about the women in the family. It’s that kind of secret.

  One of the nurses trying in vain to save my neighbor attempted to steer Mother out of the room, but she was seeing her daughter and no one was stopping her. The frantic beeping turned into a long wail and finally silence.

  “Time of death, ten fifteen,” someone said. I could hear the snaps of gloves being pulled off and the shuffle of paper boots. I wanted to console them and tell them it was inevitable, that it was her time, but I couldn’t find the words. Besides, I had my mother to deal with.

  Mother held up an overnight case. “I brought you pajamas and a change of clothes, your toiletries and…”

  “I doubt I’ll be here much longer.” Oh, how I hoped that was true. This was happening too quickly. I had just had a conversation with Death.

  “But I want you to have your things. I can cancel my appointments tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be fine, Mother. You don’t need to stay. Honest.”

  She put her hand on her hip and studied me a moment. “So how long has this been going on?”

  “You mean Hephzibah? About fifteen, maybe twenty minutes? Since I woke up here.” That was it! Maybe it was just the here. Maybe it was just the hospital. Maybe all I had to do was stay out of hospitals. I could do that.

  “Then you were talking to her. Oh, honey, I’m so proud. It finally came.”

  “Ease up, Mother. I’m not a little girl getting her first period. I don’t know that I’ve actually gotten anything. I saw Hephzibah. I haven’t seen any dead people or anything else spooky or weird. Please don’t make a big deal of it.” At the moment I said it, I meant it, but then I remembered the little man on the tracks. I closed my eyes. “Oh, crap,” I whispered, fighting my rising panic.

  “Don’t make a big deal? Portia, this is big news. I have to call your Aunt Bella and cousin Eleanor and–”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no? It’s a big deal in this family when someone’s gift arrives. I had honestly given up on you, but–”

  “I’m not sure it’s forever. I’ve probably got a concussion. I’m hoping Hephzibah disappears with the rest of…the symptoms.”

  “Do you think so?” Her eyes were worried. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “I don’t feel quite right. I think for now you shouldn’t tell anyone. Until we know it’s permanent and all.”

  She wrung her hands. “If you think so, dear.”

  “I do. Oh, look. Here’s Walter.”

  He stood smiling in the doorway, holding a huge pink bouquet with a vase shaped like a pink cloud that read “It’s a Girl.”

  “Do you like them?” he asked. “It’s the best I could do.”

  * * * *

  Waking up in a hospital room is disorienting enough on its own, but try doing it with a sad-faced stranger staring at you from close range.

  She looked like someone who had lost her puppy. “Can you see me? You look like you can see me,” she said. She had long, honey-blond hair and a chubby but pretty face.

  I knew where this was going. “I can see you.” I sighed. “Are you a ghost?”

  “I’m Corinne,” she said as though this explained why she was sad and sitting on my hospital bed. Yes, she had to be a ghost.

  “What can I do for you, Corinne?”

  “I think I died here today,” she said uncertainly.

  “Oh.” That explained a lot. My dead roommate. “Shouldn’t you be gone? I’m mean didn’t she...you know...take you wherever...you go?” I finished lamely, not sure how to frame the question. I’m not in the habit of talking to dead people. “Didn’t Death come by to pick you up?”

  “She wouldn’t go.” I jumped at Hephzibah’s voice so near my elbow.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Sorry, doll.”

  “I have questions,” Corinne said. “I’m not ready to die yet.”

  “I hear that all the time. No one is ever ready. Trust me,” Hephzibah said soothingly. “Come with me and everything will be clear as day.”

  “I want my answers first. Where am I going? Did someone tell my Aunt Susie? Who did this to me?
Why? What’s going to happen to Billy?”

  “Slow down. Slow down. I told you. Just come with me and we’ll get you some answers. As for the worldly things, it’s best to forget them. They don’t matter to you anymore.”

  Corinne crossed her arms. “I’m staying here.”

  Hephzibah gave me a look. “A little help here?”

  “Me? Don’t look at me,” I said. “I am not my mother. I don’t meddle in the affairs of the dead. Unh-unh. No way, Jose. Not gonna happen.” I desperately wished to be anywhere else. Anywhere. Even the dentist’s office.

  I’m not a curmudgeon, I swear. But I’ve seen what the dead can do to the living, how much they can demand. It’s a slippery slope, and I had no intention of setting a single foot on it. I liked my life and really, why should I spend it fixing things for people who are gone? Life is for the living. Dead people should cross over to whatever comes next and leave the living in peace.

  “At least promise the girl you’ll call Aunt Susie in Omaha.”

  Corinne’s face brightened. “Would you? That would help a lot.”

  “Of course she will. Won’t you, Portia? Her name is Portia,” Hephzibah whispered to Corinne. “She sees dead people.”

  “But only for a little while. I’ll be myself soon. Then all this talking-to-the-dead stuff is over. I’ll call the aunt. But that’s it.” The way I figured it, calling the girl’s aunt was helping the living. I could do that. It seemed reasonable.

  “What about Billy? Who’ll take care of my Billy?” Corinne’s voice rose. Hephzibah shot me another help me look.

  “Who’s Billy?” I prayed she didn’t have a child she wanted me to adopt and raise. It would be hard to turn down a dead mother.

  “Billy is my dog. My roommate hates him.” She sniffled. Her blue eyes were sad, but dry. “Please take care of my Billy.”

  “A dog? No way. I’ll call your aunt, even though I’m sure the people at the hospital have already done it, but if it makes you feel better, then fine. A phone call? Yes. A dog? No.”

  “It’s a little dog,” Hephzibah said. “I’ve seen it. A little bitty dog. Man’s best friend.”