“I think you will. Their spirits are too present not to. They think this is still their home. They may not even understand what you’re doing here.”
“I’m not sure I do either,” she said ruefully. “I feel like we’ve moved into someone else’s home. It will never feel like ours, if they’re attached to it this strongly.”
“They’re spirits, and no longer live people. You should be able to find a way to coexist. It depends on how present they wish to be, and how powerfully they make themselves felt. Spirits can either be very determined or very discreet, depending on how they react to you, and how firm you and your husband want to be about it.”
“I don’t want to have to fight for our turf.”
“Maybe you won’t have to. They’re not aggressive people, most of them seem very gentle, and the children are very sweet.”
“Do you think Bertrand and Gwyneth want to drive us away?” she asked him.
“I don’t get that sense at all. Their energy seems very welcoming and warm. Augusta may give you a hard time”—he smiled as he said it—“but that’s just who she is as a spirit, and who she was then as well. And Angus is entirely harmless, he’s just an eccentric old man. I think he never married and had no children of his own.”
“I’ll have to talk to my husband and find out what he thinks, if he even believes me,” Sybil said thoughtfully, and she wasn’t at all sure he would.
“He may have to see them himself to take it seriously,” Michael suggested.
“If they show themselves to him.”
“I think they will. And Magnus is aching to play with your youngest son.” That worried Sybil too.
“I hope he doesn’t frighten him. Charlie is terrified of ghosts, as I said before.”
“Magnus won’t appear as a ghost to him. They’re just two little boys.”
“A hundred years apart,” Sybil said, still trying to sort it all out in her head. It was a lot to digest. But at least Michael had validated what she knew she’d seen, and told her a great deal more. Along with Bettina’s family history, she had all the information she needed now, but she still wanted to finish the book to learn more about them. She and Blake had bought much more than a house, they had acquired a century of history, and the family that had lived there too.
“I hope you’ll tell me how it all works out,” he said kindly.
“I will,” she said solemnly, grateful for his visit and the light he had shed on the situation they were in, which only she believed so far.
“They’re a very endearing group of people, if you ever get to know them,” Michael said. “My visit may have stirred them up a bit. Psychic contact from me today may bring them forward again. They can feel me, even if they don’t know who I am. It may draw them to you. They can sense you too, and your interest in them. You have a very open spirit,” he told Sybil, and wished her luck before he left. He told her that she was very fortunate to have drawn the Butterfields toward her own light, which he said was very attractive to spirits, who sensed other pure spirits around them. She wasn’t sure that was a good thing, and she didn’t know if she was ready to meet them again. She wanted to talk to Blake first.
She was quiet when the children came home from school that afternoon. She was lying on her bed, reading Bettina’s book, and went to ask them how school had gone. Andy and Caroline seemed to like their new high school, and Charlie was happy at his school and said the teacher was nice, though not as nice as his teacher in New York, but he didn’t know her as well yet. He went to play outside in the garden after that, and Sybil went back to her book to learn more about the Butterfields and their history.
Blake came home from the office looking tired, and said he’d had difficult meetings that afternoon with their bank, and he was happy to see Sybil at the end of his day. It had been lonely for him before they arrived in San Francisco, and he loved having his family around him again.
“What did you do today?” he asked with interest as she got dinner ready and gave him a vague, distracted answer.
“Nothing much.” She was making roast beef, which was a favorite of his. He went upstairs to change from his suit into jeans, and they all came into the kitchen when she sent Charlie to get them for dinner. She wanted Blake to carve the beef, and she’d set the kitchen table with pretty place mats and flowers. But before she could ask Blake to slice the meat for them, they heard noises in the dining room that sounded like a party, voices talking and laughing, and they looked at each other, wondering who was there. All the Gregorys were in the kitchen, and there was no one else in the house.
“Did someone leave a TV on?” Blake asked, looking confused as the children shook their heads, and there was no television in the formal dining room anyway. Not knowing what else to do, Sybil opened the door into the dining room from the kitchen with a feeling of trepidation, sensing what was about to happen. One by one, she, Blake, and the kids walked into the dining room, as all the Butterfields seated at the dining room table, elegantly dressed, stopped talking and stared at them. Sybil knew what it meant and who they were, but it was too late to warn any of her family, even Blake.
“Good Lord! Who are they and what are they wearing?” Augusta said loudly, glaring at them through her lorgnette, and Angus turned to observe them with a look of surprise. He couldn’t take his eyes off Sybil, who was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and ballet slippers. “Are those costumes of some kind?” Augusta asked. She was wearing a gray velvet gown with lace at the neck.