TEN

May and Katie came out of May’s room so I tried to quickly traverse the span between the living world and my world. “Whoa what was that?” said Katie as she opened May’s door. Katie had seen the tail end of me as I turned into a grey streak and passed before her eyes.

“No I’m serious! What was that thing?”

“Katie, you didn’t see anything you’re just thinking of scary things so you are going to be prone to seeing things now,” said Katie mimicking her father’s words from when she herself would become frightened.

“Whatever! I saw something!” insisted Katie as she headed down the stairs to the front door.

~

It aggravated me that Clara was so frightened of me. She perceived me as evil so she probably thought she was banishing an evil spirit when she was using her salt and herbs. But my guess was that those spiritual remedies work on all ghosts not just evil ones; it was Clara’s perception of me that made her think she was ridding the house of malevolence. She was simply afraid of ghosts and any ghost she encountered she probably assumed to be a negative entity. I wondered if her own family members who had passed on had tried to contact her and if they received the same treatment. She sure was prepared and she was experienced.

Watching from a distance I saw Clara go into her room, I of course, could still not enter, but I did hover out side her door. She was talking to herself.

“Why do I have to put up with this everyday?” She asked herself.

Everyday? I thought. I hadn’t been trying to make contact everyday.

“My whole life I’ve been putting up with these menaces, but now its more frequent!” I heard as she was pounding something that sounded like a pillow and straightening what sounded like a duvet cover.

She sensed me outside of her door. I heard a match light, she opened the door and blew sage at me again. The Sage smoke was as discomforting an experience as the first Sage cloud I had to abide. I backed far enough away so I wouldn’t have to endure her attack any longer.

If Clara could sense, see and feel me then there had to be other people like her. I needed to find such a person. Not only did I have to get a message to my family I wanted to know what or who was visiting Clara.

Clearly, if ghosts could exist and I was proof of the fact, then there had to be others like me. But it troubled me that I could not sense them nor see them. Could they see me or sense me? Or were we all bumbling through our own worlds trying to understand the terrain and the reasons why we did not pass on to a Heaven or an Oblivion?

Clara was sadly being bothered by spirits from somewhere and I was pretty sure I had opened up a doorway from my world into hers. This was the only explanation I could come up with. By constantly visiting my family maybe others willingly or unwillingly followed me.

~

It was important for me to stay out of my family’s world until I had some answers. I had enjoyed watching May sleep and checking in on David and his new partner, Meagan. I could still watch them from afar so I didn’t feel completely alone but I couldn’t feel their feelings unless I was in their world. I learned how to think of May, David and Nana without instantly ending up by their sides. It was hard work. My whole being wanted to be with my daughter and my husband. But I just couldn’t risk bringing anything else into their world. I didn’t know what I was dealing with. When I tried to explore the darkness I would hear noises that frightened me. Simple noises like breathing or the sound of coughing; earthly noises like the sound of breaking glass or footsteps on wet pavement. In the dark these simple sounds took on sinister tones. I was on guard most of the time.

My goal of finding someone like Clara started with the only other person I knew of who caught a glimpse of me: Katie. Although, I didn’t want to risk exposing her to some secondary entity like I had done to Clara, I thought perhaps only one visit wouldn’t hurt. Katie seemed intrigued when she saw me streak across her vision.

I thought of her and found myself hovering over Katie’s house. When I entered it was a mess. Dishes were in the sink, papers were all over the floor and tables and her mother was asleep on the sofa. The smell of cigarette smoke permeated the air and there was a dog that was lapping up his nights dinner.

I zipped through the house trying to find Katie’s room and when I found it I was surprised. Her room was neat and tidy, everything organized and the smell of rosewater filled the air. Katie was writing in her journal with her hair tied back and freshly washed pajamas on. She seemed like a sweet girl. I decided to try and catch her attention.

“Katie?” I said suspended behind her. She didn’t look up from her journal so I moved in front of her and hovered beside her pencil. “Katie!” I yelled. Still no reaction. I went to her bookshelf to see if there were any titles that might help me to get a message to her. There was one, a vintage pulp fiction book titled: “Impossible Yet it Happened” a book about psychic phenomena. I went to the book and forced all of my energy onto it. It finally fell off the shelf. Katie jumped, but she didn’t seem to let it stop her journaling. She just looked behind her, picked the book off the floor and put the book on her desk – never reading the title and never hearing or seeing me. She was not my new Clara.

As I left her room I looked back and saw that something had tugged at Katie’s hair. She whipped her head around, stood up and looked around the room waiting for another form of contact, but nothing happened. I tried to see what it was but it was invisible to me. My theory was correct. When I entered the world other ghosts could follow (if they were ghosts). I had to be very careful from now on. As I watched Katie from afar she eventually sat down again and went back to her writing. Whatever it was seemed to be gone and she was going to ignore the experience or right it off as just a weird sensation.