Seven Turns: A Ghost Story/A Love Story

The Greater Asheboro Area Scientific Paranormal Society had arrived at Vale House. A van with an appropriately atmospheric logo painted on the side stood in the lawn beside the porch, and cables had been strung across the grass and up the stairs. Three young men and a woman were setting up sound equipment and a small camera on the porch while the Captain sat in a wicker chair and watched. Cally stepped back and looked at the scene, wishing she had the cheek to take out her phone and snap a picture of the young paranormal researchers working so seriously there that they were completely oblivious of a figure in white gazing down at them from an upstairs window. Well, she thought, there was no way to be sure the white figure would show up in the photo anyway.

As she started to walk up the steps, one of the men and the woman approached the closed front door and knocked, while another man aimed a camera at them. Joan opened the door and emerged, smiling sweetly and adjusting her perfectly coiffed hair.

“Hello, Ma’am,” said the young man. “We’re from the Greater Asheboro Area Scientific Paranormal Society.”

From his wicker chair, the Captain laughed heartily. “G. A. A. S. P. S! I get it! That’s a good one!”

The cameraman lowered the camera, and the other young people groaned. Joan burst through the door and glared at the Captain. “You ruined it!” she shouted at him.

“It’s alright,” the young woman said. “We can do another take. Don’t worry, we always do more than one anyway.”

The Captain continued to chuckle softy to himself and Cally said, “Before you start, may I go inside first? I have something I need to give to someone inside.” Joan glared at her as she stopped beside the Captain’s chair and suggested he might also come inside with her.

“Keep him out of the way!” Joan growled as Cally helped the old man through the door.

The hall was empty and tidy and blindingly bright. A pair of box lights on tall tripods had been set up on either side of the door, and their harsh white beams converged on the grand staircase. Cally led the Captain through to the equally tidy and brightly lit dining room. “Where is everyone?” she asked him as he poured himself some brandy.

“I propose a drinking game!” he said. “Every time one of those fellows says ‘Oh my god I felt something’ you take a drink. When they say, ‘What the hell was that!’ you have to finish your drink and pour another.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Cally said. “We’d be dead of alcohol poisoning by dinnertime. Captain, why don’t you take your drink and join Ian. Where is he?”

“Joan has stationed him in the parlor. Kat and ‘Nacio are banished to the kitchen. Nellie and her husband have been told to stay in the Cala Lily Room because it is not haunted, as far as anyone knows. You are supposed to be seated at the desk, and Joan will have words for you later, I don’t doubt, for not being here for the last few hours.”

Cally escorted the Captain to the parlor, where Ian was sitting patiently in a wing chair next to the fireplace. He was dressed in a dapper white linen suit, and if he had had a beard, he would have looked like Colonel Sanders. “I’ll just run upstairs to give Bethany her medicine,” she said, helping the Captain to the matching seat on the opposite side of the fireplace. “You look great, Mr. May,” she added as she slipped back out into the hall. The knock at the front door was being repeated, and Cally hurried across the hall and ran up the stairs quickly so as not to ruin Joan’s big scene again.

She found the door of the Daffodil room shut with a sticky note on the knob that read in sharp, angular handwriting “Keep this door SHUT at all times!” She opened it, and was delighted to be greeted by a wide-awake Bethany, who was sitting up and smiling. “You look so much better!” Cally told her.

“I feel much better.” Bethany’s voice was still a little weak, but her smile was genuine. Cally left the door open and sat down in the chair beside the bed. Little Cyndi Lauper took the opportunity to dash out of the room. Doctor Boojums woke up and began washing his paws. Cally tried to ignore him.

“How is the pain?” she asked Bethany.

“It’s okay, as long as I don’t try to move. Or laugh. Or breathe!” She almost laughed at this, but remembered and stopped herself in time.

“Well I brought you some new medicine that Doc says won’t keep you so knocked out all the time. It’s just about time for you to take it. Have you eaten at all today?”

Bethany tipped her head toward a plate of buttered toast on the night stand. It had gone dry, with only one bite taken from it. “I tried,” she said. “But my stomach is feeling a bit too squiffy.”

“Maybe that’s a side-effect of the medicine, too,” Cally guessed. “This lower dose should be much better for you.” She set the bottle on the night stand, making sure Bethany could see the heart drawn on the label. “I think Doc is kind of sweet on you.”

Bethany smiled. “He’s a good man,” she admitted, but even as she said it Cally knew she was thinking of Ian May instead. Then she changed the subject. “I’ve had the strangest dreams all day long. It makes me wonder if all those ghost stories, white ladies and night noises and visitations by lost loved ones, maybe they’re all just caused by pain medicine. Or cold medicine, or something!”

“Maybe,” said Cally. “Side effects can be mysterious.”

“I’ll tell you another one. My mouth is so dry! I tried to drink this tea but it’s horrible. Joan must have made it!”

“Don’t laugh!” Cally warned her.

“I wonder if you would be an angel and bring me a glass of Kat’s good iced tea instead.”

“It would be my pleasure.” Cally stood and picked up the tray with the tea cup and toast. “Would you prefer to have this door open or shut? Only that paranormal team is here and they might disturb you.”

“Shut it,” Bethany decided. “Don’t want them walking in here with their camera, with me in my nightie.”

Cally pulled the door shut and turned around to nearly walk straight into George. Struggling to keep from dropping the tray, she whispered “Don’t you have some place Joan has ordered you to be?”

“I can’t go far from the upstairs hall,” he told her seriously, the sarcasm going right over his head as usual. “My zemi is in that desk there.” He tilted his head toward the butler’s desk.

“What is a zemi?” Cally asked. “And where on earth did you come up with that outfit?” She could not help but notice he was wearing a long, green cloak and tall boots.

“I stand in admiration of the character Faramir,” he explained with a brief bow.

Cally was impressed. “You read fast! But Georgie remember, the point of reading a book is not to merely finish it, but to take the time to experience it.”

“Dear lady, in my world, there is nothing but time, and experience.” He looked very somber for a moment. Then he laughed, gesturing over the Gallery railing toward the paranormal crew setting up their gear in the dining room below. “I am going to mess with them!” he announced.

“Joan would probably actually like that,” Cally supposed. “But how are you going to mess with them if they can’t see you?”

“I told you. I can do other things. I’m good at electronics.” He bent over the railing and studied their equipment.

“Just don’t give anyone a heart-attack.” Cally left him there and carried the tea tray down the stairs. She paused in the dining room doorway and waited for an opportunity to make her way through the lights and cables to the back hall.

Joan spotted her. “Oh, and this is our celebrity guest!” she called out. The paranormal crew, and the Captain, who had already returned to the sideboard to refill his glass, all turned to look at her. “We are so fortunate,” Joan said grandly, “to have famous author Callaghan McCarthy staying with us this week. She’s the one who wrote Escape the Haunted Heart, you know, and she’s going to write a sequel based on Vale House!”

Cally sighed and put on her television interview expression as the camera operator swiveled around and pointed his lens at her. “I’m pleased to meet you all,” she said.

“I wish you had changed out of that ridiculous shirt!” Joan whispered loudly at her.

But the crew seemed to like it. “Ghosts are people, too,” the team leader read aloud. “Do you really think so?”

“Absolutely,” said Cally.

“So you’re a believer, then.”

“If you don’t mind, I need to take this to the kitchen.” Cally squeezed behind a lighting tripod to get to the back hall, glancing up to see George and Doctor Boojums both peering down through the railing. As she headed toward the kitchen, she heard someone say “Don’t worry, we’ll just edit that out.”

In the kitchen she found Katarina and Ignacio, as well as Foster, who had apparently escaped the Cala Lily room, standing around the work table as if in conference. Kat and Ignacio were dressed in their best clothes, trying to keep them clean with fresh white aprons while they prepared dinner for the crew. “You should serve them tacos!” Cally said by way of greeting.

“Oh, I wish I had the nerve to do that!” Katarina laughed. “How is Bethany?”

“She’s in very good spirits!” Cally was happy to report. “But she’s thirsty. She asked for some of your famous iced tea.” Katarina dashed to get a glass out of the cupboard while Cally took the tray to the sink. The tea in the cup did look murky, she had to admit as she held it over the sink to empty it. She paused, tilting the cup. A white sediment swirled in the bottom of the tea. “Who made this?” she asked.

Ignacio came and looked into the cup, and then at Cally. His face grew serious.

“Not I,” said Katarina. “Bethany doesn’t like hot tea. It’s no wonder she didn’t drink it.”

“Well, she tried to drink it,” said Cally. “She said, and I quote, ‘it’s horrible’.”

Ignacio took the cup from her and sniffed the contents. He grimaced, and started to take a sip, but Cally grabbed the cup out of his hand. “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.” She set it on the drain board and looked at the others in the room. “Maybe it’s time to call the sheriff,” she said almost in a whisper.

The room filled with silence as its occupants thought things they did not say aloud. Finally Foster said, “I will call him.” He took his phone out of his pocket, put it to his ear and shook his head. “I can’t get a signal in here. I’ll go use the landline in the Hall.” He turned to leave the room, but turned back with his hand on the door. “We must all keep a close eye on everyone in this household. Take note and let me know any time someone goes into or comes out of Bethany’s room.” Cally understood Foster intended this to be a veiled threat directed at Ignacio, but she figured it would also cause everyone to keep watchful eyes on Joan, as well, and Joan was still at the top of her own suspect list.

Cally took the glass of iced tea from Katarina’s shaking hand and turned to take it up to Bethany. “Wait,” said Ignacio. He took the dry toast from the tray and threw it out the kitchen door into the garden, where several chickens pounced upon it eagerly. “See if she can eat this instead.” He took some strawberries from the refrigerator, sliced and arranged them on a little floral plate, and added two curly spring lettuce leaves for garnish.

“Seriously, Ignacio,” Cally said. “Is there anything at which you aren’t a genius?” But nobody laughed as Cally carried the tray out of the room.

Turning toward the dining room, she heard one of the investigators shouting. “My battery just went dead. It was fully charged a few minutes ago, and then I just watched the needle go straight down to zero. What the hell was that?”

Ian and the Captain were both standing near the sideboard grinning. The Captain was refilling their glasses. Cally turned around and decided to use the back stairs instead.