Restless Souls

  Chapter 10

  “Irwin’s here with us now?” My eyes focused on Benjamin’s curls jittering from his impassioned nods while my mind revved in neutral. Something was seriously wrong with my children. Katie and Benjamin were unable to cope with their parents’ divorce and now they suffered from delusions and probably needed therapy. It was one of my greatest fears. Tears burned my eyes. My children needed therapy because of the actions of their parents. How could Jonathan and I have been so cruel?

  Benjamin looked over my shoulder and pointed.

  In a reflexive action, I turned, expecting to see nothing but gouged walls and empty space. Instead, I stared into the dark, almost black eyes, of a dark-haired little boy with a delightful, slightly mischievous smile. Whatever delusions my children experienced, I experienced, too. Instinctively, I jolted from the sofa, yanking Benjamin with me.

  “Mom?”

  Dimly, I heard my name. Getting my wits about me, I asked, “What?”

  “If you’re not nice to him, he’ll get mad.”

  I inhaled deeply. “It’s okay, honey. He’s not real, just a figment of our imagination. We’ve been under a lot of stress lately. It's natural for us to see things that aren't there.” The horror speeding down my spine confused me. If this weren’t real, why was I scared? I closed my eyes and opened them. Benjamin noticed.

  “Closing your eyes doesn't help. I did that, too, the first time I saw him. He’s really here and doesn’t go away until he wants to.”

  I argued with my mind that this couldn't be happening. It couldn't be real. Any moment now I'd wake from this nightmare. Despite my resolve, I believed a little more with each passing moment that this apparition was not a manifestation of our anxiety. My stomach churned at the thought.

  “Say something to him, Mom.”

  Say something? What? Do you come in peace? Wassup? Then I said what I would instinctively say to anyone on introduction. “Hi.” The catch in my throat made me cough.

  He smiled, a most endearing one. “Hi, Mommy.”

  I grasped Benjamin’s shoulders and moved him with me a step backward. “I’m not your mother.”

  “You don’t remember me?” He bowed his head.

  His quivering chin and the single teardrop trickling down his cheek affected me deeply. “I’m sorry. You’re mistaking me....”

  He floated backward, then sprang forward, halting within inches of my face. The look of hatred in his eyes frightened me. I pushed Benjamin back another step. “Go away. Leave us alone. You don’t have any business here.” Not wanting to take my eyes from the ghost, I yelled for Katie over my shoulder and estimated the distance to the front door from where we stood.

  The creature moved closer to us. “There is nowhere for you to run.”

  Time to wake, Susan. I pinched myself. Ouch. “Leave us alone,” I shouted, stepping in front of Benjamin. At our backs, Katie trounced down the stairs and into the living room. “Don’t come any closer, Katie.”

  “Mom, what’s going ... Omigod.” My daughter screamed.

  The creature giggled like a child. “Hello, Katie.”

  I grabbed her arm. “Katie, back up very slowly toward the door.” For once my daughter didn’t argue. “Good girl. Everything’s going to be fine, sweetie. Just keep moving toward the door.” The calmness of my voice surprised me. My insides were a quivering mess.

  “Mom, I can’t go any farther. There’s a wall or something.”

  I looked over my shoulder and put my hand out. She was right. The archway was a solid invisible wall.

  The ghost laughed, apparently enjoying our dilemma.

  I turned and pounded the wall, but the barrier didn't break. I flung myself against the wall and bounced back like rubber. “Somebody help us,” I screamed toward the window.

  He laughed again, harder this time. “No one can hear you. No one can help you.”

  I believed him. He held us captive and would do to us whatever he wished. This was it. The End. I looked at Katie and Benjamin. My poor babies. They were too young to die. There were so many things they had yet to experience. Their whole lives lie ahead of them. It couldn’t end like this. I dropped to my knees and steepled my hands. “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name — ”

  The ghost guffawed. “God won’t help you. He didn’t help me.”

  “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done — ”

  “You’re wasting your time.”

  I raised my voice. “On Earth as it is in Heaven....” A luminous hooded figure clothed in white floated into the room. “Oh Jesus," I said. "Another one.” My head spun. I felt faint.

  The figure poised in midair and pointed a finger at the ghost. “Leave them alone.”

  I pulled myself together and gathered my children in my arms as the figure rose higher.

  Bright light encircled her as she swirled in a wide arc and rushed at him. “Through Thy peace, O Christ, Redeemer, which passeth all understanding, fortify us and secure us from evil. Where there is hatred, sow love. Where there is darkness, bring light.”

  The room darkened.

  I tried to open my eyes, but couldn’t. Where was I? Was I dead? My whole body ached. Oh God. I died and went to hell. Why was I in hell? I always tried to do the right thing and be a good person. Sometimes I swore in my thoughts and told little white lies and didn’t go to church regularly like I should. For that I should suffer the eternal torments of the damned? God, please give me another chance. I would change my ways. I promise.

  I was cold. Funny, I always imagined hell as a continually burning incinerator. Maybe I wasn’t sentenced to an afterlife of torture, after all.

  Someone cursed. People damned for their mistakes would curse. This must be hell.

  My head was lifted onto something soft. God or an angel would do something like that. Maybe I went to Heaven, after all. I relaxed and drifted into a lush meadow. It was so beautiful and peaceful here. The rich green leaves of trees ruffled in a breeze. A warm afternoon sun warmed my fevered flesh. In the distance, I heard the rush of a waterfall. Heavenly.

  “Mom, wake up.”

  I recognized that voice. Benjamin. I looked around the meadow. He died, too? Oh God, he was too young to die. Why couldn’t you spare him, Lord?

  Something slapped me hard across the face. “Mom.” I recognized that voice, too. My daughter. The slap I didn’t recognize. Both my children died with me? How could you be so cruel, Jesus?

  Then I remembered — Christ Almighty — that spirits besieged my house. I forced my eyes open. Benjamin threw himself across my chest. “Mommy, I was so worried. I thought you died.”

  Benjamin never called me Mommy anymore. He said he was too old for baby talk.

  Katie helped me sit up.

  “What happened?” I rubbed the back of my head. It hurt like crazy. My face hurt, too. I massaged my cheeks and flexed my jaw. My daughter packed a wallop.

  “You passed out and hit your head when you fell,” she said.

  My daughter failed to mention that she'd slapped me. I know she was trying to make me come to. I just hoped she hadn't taken any pleasure in physically hurting me. “Are they gone?” I couldn't muster the courage to voice the word.

  My children nodded.

  I looked at Katie. “How long was I out?”

  “Not long. A couple of minutes, maybe.”

  I nodded and immediately regretted it. “Can you help me to the sofa?”

  After they positioned me comfortably, Katie went to the kitchen to make me tea.

  Moments later, I wrapped my hands around the cup, enjoying the warmth. I took a sip. “This is a good cup of tea, honey. Thanks.” I knew we needed to talk about what happened, but not yet.

  Katie smiled. “Bet you didn’t think you’d be sipping tea ever again, did you?”

  I'd reacted like such a wimp. Blood rushed to my face, but I managed to smile. “You got that right.”

  “We hav
e to talk about what happened, Mom.”

  She made more sense than I, but talking about the incident would make it real. “In a little while.” Of all the things I tried to protect my children from, evil spirits was not one of them.

  “Are you ... you didn’t get hurt, did you?” I looked from Katie to Benjamin. They shook their heads. I exhaled a long breath. “Thank God.”

  Benjamin edged closer to me. “It wasn’t God, Mom. It was Katie’s ghost who made Irwin go away.”

  “Yes, it was,” she said matter-of-factly.

  My mother, I realized, our guardian angel. This was all too bizarre. I turned to Katie sitting on the other side of me. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Can you ever forgive me?”

  She nodded. Her smile, though not terribly wide, made up for her rotten behavior lately.

  After a moment, she asked, “Do you think the ghosts are gone for good?”

  What did I know about ghosts? Nothing. And up until thirty minutes ago, I didn’t believe in them at all. “I think your ghost banished him.” Maybe the prayer my mother recited excised it.

  That made sense.

  They heaved a sigh of relief, as did I. Hopefully, we'd seen the last of Irwin.

  The doorbell rang. The sound startled Katie and I, but not Benjamin. He shot from the sofa like a rocket and ran to the door.

  He re-entered the living room with Alex in tow. “And then the woman in white showed up from nowhere and made Irwin go away. I wish you could have been here to see it, Alex. She was awesome, man.” Benjamin pivoted, slashing his hands through the air. “Chop. Chop. Then she said a prayer and poof, he disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. Then the woman smiled at us and disappeared, too.”

  Alex walked over to me. “You had some excitement, I hear.”

  I looked up at him. “Uh-huh. Ghosts.” I ran a hand through my hair. I must look a fright.

  “You’re hurt.”

  Self-consciously, I raised a hand to my face and cast a sideways glance at Katie who shifted uncomfortably beside me. “I fell and hit my face. It’s nothing, really.”

  He looked from me to Katie. “You made it home safely, I see.”

  “Like it’s any of your business.”

  “Katie." I kept my voice steady, applying, I hoped, the right amount of force to my voice that would tell her I wouldn't abide impoliteness, despite what we'd just experienced.

  She studied her fingernails. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she said through tightly set lips.

  “Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to Alex.”

  “It’s not necess — ”

  “Yes, it is, Alex.” I turned to her. “Katie?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  It wasn’t a sincere apology, but it was the best we would get.

  “May I be excused now?”

  Her sarcastic tone didn’t escape me. I smiled, though. “Of course.”

  She bolted from the sofa and dashed up the stairs.

  I turned to Alex. “Not to sound inhospitable, but why’d you come by?”

  He shrugged. “I wanted to lend a hand to look for Katie if she hadn’t returned home yet.”

  “Oh. That’s so thoughtful of you.” So much happened since then. I was still angry with Katie for taking off from the restaurant the way she did, but it seemed a trivial matter now compared to our showdown with ghosts.

  I wanted to discuss what happened with Alex but not in front of my son. “Benjamin, why don’t you lie down for awhile? You look exhausted.” He did. Dark circles framed his lower eyelids and his eyes drooped. “Then we’ll have supper.”

  “What’re we having?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Fried chicken, maybe.”

  “And apple turnovers?”

  He pushed the envelope, but I agreed.

  “Awright.” And with no more than that, he left for his room.

  As soon as I heard his bedroom door close, I turned and indicated for Alex to sit. He sat and casually placed his arm across the back of the sofa.

  I told him everything that happened from the time Katie returned home from her little excursion until I passed out. “So, what do you think? Are the ghosts gone?” I harbored doubts and needed a second opinion. Alex wasn't an expert on ghosts, at least that I knew, but he seemed a irrational and analytic individual, so his view on the subject would count.

  He hemmed and hawed for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “But maybe not?”

  “Maybe not.”

  That was what I was afraid of. “Do you have any idea what I should do now?” An exorcism came to mind.

  “Leroy might be able to help. Why don’t you talk to him?”

  I tilted my head to one side, weighing his suggestion and wishing I could talk to Jonathan about this. If I did, my husband would undoubtedly think me fit for the loony bin, which would end in a custody battle in family court. “Kids get over things like this, don’t they?” Katie and Benjamin were probably scarred for life.

  “Kids are resilient.”

  True. But how much could children endure before they retreated within themselves?

  “God, I have no idea what to do now.” I chewed on a hangnail.

  “You could always talk to Leroy.”

  It seemed a wise decision since he had some experience with ghosts. It also occurred to me that Alex pushed Leroy on me. Why, I didn't know. Nevertheless, I considered the suggestion.

  “Maybe I should.”

  “I’ll come with you if you want.”

  “Thanks, but it’s not necessary.” Something told me Leroy awaited me and would be more forthcoming with information if I went alone.