When they got there, Charlie liked the look of his school. They drove through Sausalito, then went back to the city and visited the sea lions, who were barking, and occasionally snapping at each other, and lying in the sun. They had lunch at Pier 39, and then the children all wanted to go home. They still had things they wanted to unpack, and Andy had promised to play a videogame with his little brother. Caroline wanted to call her friends in New York. Once they were busy in their rooms, Sybil took a quiet walk through the house to see if she noticed anything unusual, but all seemed normal. Nothing was out of place and there was no sign of the Butterfields. But despite her husband’s cynicism, she refused to believe she had imagined it.
When she got back to her room, she grabbed Bettina Butterfield’s book out of her travel bag and put it on her night table, and then she opened her computer and started surfing the Net, not sure what she was looking for. There were several sites that referred to ghosts, and even a chat room for people who had seen them, but she was looking for something more scientific. She finally discovered a website for the Psychic Institute in Berkeley, and jotted down their phone number. She closed her bedroom door and called them immediately, and when they answered, she asked to speak to someone for advice. The receptionist told her that all their counselors were busy, and asked if she’d like to make an appointment. On the spur of the moment, she made one for the next day, when all the kids would be in school. She wondered if they’d think she was crazy too, but she wanted to know if there was any basis for what she had experienced. Was it a common occurrence or totally unheard of, and what could she do about it before a family of dead people took over her home? She didn’t tell Blake that she’d called them and made an appointment. He would have been convinced she was crazy. She was relieved when that night there was no repetition of the activity of the night before. The house was peaceful, and Blake was comforted to find that Sybil was no longer on a crusade about ghosts in the house when he got home. She didn’t mention them at all.
The next day, when Sybil got everyone off to school, and had waved Charlie off on the school bus, she got in the van and headed across the Bay Bridge to Berkeley. She found the institute easily with the help of the GPS, and when she got there, it looked like a normal office or a small medical building. There was a very ordinary receptionist, and when Sybil said she had an appointment with Michael Stanton, the girl at the desk asked her to wait. Two minutes later, he came to greet her, and took her to his office. He was wearing jeans, a plaid shirt, and hiking boots, and had a beard, but his hair was short. He was about Sybil’s age, and he looked like a schoolteacher of some kind, or a college professor. And in his office, she saw that he had a number of degrees, including a master’s in psychology from UC Berkeley. He explained to her that he had been studying psychic phenomena for twenty years, and had written several books on the subject, to reassure her that this was a serious vocation for him.
“It’s surprisingly scientific, even though it’s not always easy to explain to people who haven’t experienced it,” he said pleasantly, and then he turned to her with a warm look and asked what he could do to help her.
“I know this sounds ridiculous, or it would to most people, and my husband is acting like I’m psychotic. We just moved into a new house three days ago. It was built in 1902 by the Butterfield family. They moved out around 1930—I think they lost their money—and a member of the family bought it back many years later and lived there until 1980. It’s had a number of owners since then. My husband and I bought it a month ago. We just moved out from New York. There have been a couple of minor incidents, nothing terrifying, but the other night during the earthquake, I saw them. All of them. The people who built the house, their children, and three other people.” Sybil looked agitated as she explained it to him, remembering how frightened she had been, both by the earthquake and the people in the hall afterward. “I saw them perfectly clearly. They walked out of the dining room, right past me, up the staircase and vanished. Two of them talked to me, and I heard them talk to one another, just as though they were right there with me.” Michael Stanton didn’t look surprised by what she said.
“How do you know it was them?” he asked quietly.
“We have their portraits up in the front hall. We bought the house from the bank, in a foreclosure, and there was quite a lot of furniture and some art in storage. We’re using it, and I liked the idea of hanging the paintings of them, like a portrait gallery in a European chateau or an ancestral home. It seemed respectful of them.”
“Did anyone else see them the other night?” he inquired, and she shook her head.
“I was alone downstairs and they disappeared before I went back up to the second floor. I went down to see if anything had broken or fallen during the earthquake.” He nodded and jotted down some notes on a pad on his desk. In some ways, he reminded her of a shrink, but he didn’t act as though she was crazy, as Blake had.
“What were they wearing?” he asked, and Sybil thought about it.
“They were dressed in clothes similar to the portraits, though not exactly, but they were wearing clothes of the time when the house was built. Evening gowns, white tie and tails, a kilt.” He nodded again. “Does this sound nuts to you?” she asked him, and he smiled at her.
“Not at all. I hear it all the time. Something about the earthquake the other night may have replicated an incident in their lifetimes, and shaken them loose, literally. Given when the house was built, I assume they must have lived there during the 1906 earthquake. And your moving in may have jarred them too. If the house has been unoccupied for a long time, you may have startled them. Hanging their portraits may have made them feel welcome. And they may be curious about you. Ghosts are sometimes very curious about people in their space.”
“It’s our space now,” Sybil said firmly, and Michael smiled.
“They may not think so. It’s not unusual for people from the spirit life to become quite attached to the homes they lived in during their lifetime. They may have happy memories there. It’s possible that they never left the house and have remained there for all this time. But it’s very unusual for an entire family to stay together in a home. It’s more common for one or two spirits to linger, but not a large group like the one you describe. They must be very comfortable there. Did they feel menacing to you? Did you have the sense that they were trying to frighten you?” Sybil thought about it and shook her head.
“The old lady was pretty daunting, but it was more the way she looked at me and the way she was dressed. I think she had an accent too.”
“What kind of an accent?”
“British…Scottish maybe, and there was a man with her wearing a kilt. He didn’t talk to me. There’s a book about the family and their history in the house, but I haven’t had time to read it yet.”
“Maybe you should.”