CHAPTER NINE
As much as it hurt to hear my little darling daughter tell me those things, she was right. I was losing it. The ghosts became more and more frequent and whereas they used to just watch me, now they were stalking me. Talking to me. Touching me.
I tried to ignore them but it often made things worse. There was an old Asian lady with bound feet who would appear in my bathroom while I was in the tub and she would take all my items off the shelves and the medicine cabinet and throw them in the bath with me. I would scream and I’d hear Ingrid telling me to shut up, or Karl would pound on the door and demand to know what was going on.
Sometimes there was a little boy of about five or six who had half his face blown off by a shotgun accident. He would appear before me during my morning coffee, often sitting in the chair across from me and whining about how his brother knew where their father had hidden the gun and that he wanted to play with it.
One time I was felt up by a greasy-haired man in tight pants. He smelt like sewage, had coal black eyes and freezing cold fingers that rammed themselves up my skirt during a ferry voyage to the ?land Islands. It took all my self-control not to scream but even then I could tell the people around me were getting concerned.
Karl was especially worried and would insist I needed to go to a doctor. I told him I was fine, that it was just stress and being an older mother instead of a younger one. Ingrid, on the other hand, used my relapses as an excuse to further push me away.
At fifteen she had started modeling for local catalogs and magazines and began to pull in some money. She was gorgeous and she knew it and so did everyone else. Eventually her career picked up speed and she was soon offered a contract with a big modeling agency in New York City. At sixteen she decided to drop out of school and do it.
Now, I say she decided because although Karl and I were her parents and in legal control, we had a hard time saying no to her. We agreed to her following her dream, provided she only went for a year and that I would go along.
Naturally Ingrid balked at the idea. She was adamant that I not be there, convinced I would further embarrass her with my “kooky” ways and that I’d ruin her “best chance at happiness.”
That was the way it was though and Karl had a business to run. He was getting much older too and had hip problems and wasn’t one for long distance traveling.
So despite Ingrid’s protests, I made up my mind to go with her to New York.
She wasn’t the only one who protested, however.
A week before we were set to fly over, I was sitting in the back garden enjoying my last days there in the evening sun with a cup of tea. I felt a familiar chill brush across my skin and knew that I wasn’t alone. Jakob came up behind me and took a seat at the table.
As usual, he hadn’t changed. But I sure had.
“Do you only come every sixteen years or so?” I asked, my hand shaking slightly as it grasped the porcelain cup. I was nervous and excited to see him.
His smile was quick. “I only come when you’re about to embark on something you shouldn’t.”
“Oh really?” I asked wryly and leaned back in my chair. My bones ached a little and I was reminded of how much older I was now, almost 51. “No dropping by just to say hello.”
“You could have said hello to me,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows, the same old white shirt he always wore.
“You told me to not visit, to wait for you first.”
“I said that so you wouldn’t start going into the Thin Veil and attracting attention to yourself. You saw what happened when you came back out. The abilities.”
“Yes,” I said, taking a sip of tea. It had cooled rapidly in his company. “How wonderful it is to make the room shake when I’m angry, how gratifying it is to be harassed by ghosts all day long.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“You didn’t warn me!” I hissed at him and a bit of the tea spilled over the side of the cup. The saucer on the table rattled by itself ever so slightly.
I placed the cup down and composed myself. “You didn’t warn me. You brought me to that side knowing that things would get worse for me.”
“You wanted to know the truth and that’s the only way I could tell it to you.”
“I don’t know,” I mused angrily. “I think maybe you were testing me, to see what I was capable of.”
“Perhaps I was curious,” he said fidgeting with this shirt. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
“No, you’re here to warn me about something else, I’m sure. What is it this time, boogie man is coming after me? Perhaps there are some trolls who are going to pay me a visit.”
“Don’t go to New York, Pippa,” he said in a grave voice.
I studied his face, his sincerity. It rankled me to know that whatever he was about to tell me would end up being true.
“And why not?” I asked, too tired to protest.
“Because it will not end well for you. Because Ingrid needs to stay here. And you need someone who loves you, Karl, you need him to protect you from her.”
His words iced my veins. “Protect me from her? What do you know about Ingrid? What is she?”
He raised his red brows. “What is she?”
“She’s not right,” I said awkwardly.
“You’re not right either. Neither of you are. And if you go to New York, she will turn against you and fall in love with a man. She will leave you to your own devices, cast you aside like a sick dog and you will have no one.”
I looked down into the tea and managed a smile. “Oh, but I’ll have you still, won’t I boy. In spirit, of course, till another event threatens my life so.”
“I am being serious here.”
I glanced at him and saw that he was. Still, I shrugged. “I’ve made up my mind and I’m going. I’m doing this for Ingrid you know.”
“Not to see Ludie?”
I gasped even though it was partly acting on my behalf. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t thought about tracking down Ludie while I was there. “No, not Ludie. This is for my daughter, not for me. I want her to be happy and it sounds like she will be.”
“This is about more than Ingrid. She may not have your abilities but it doesn’t mean her children won’t.”
“Children?” I asked with reluctant interest.
When he didn’t say anything, I continued, feeling more annoyed by his presence by the second. “So now this is about Ingrid marrying some man and bearing me grandchildren that will be cursed with this as I am. What am I supposed to do about that?”
“Don’t go.”
I stood up in a fury, knocking my chair back onto the lawn. “You are giving me too much credit. Too much…power! This is ridiculous, to put this responsibility into my hands. This is Ingrid’s life too and I am not about to ruin it because some guide for the dead thinks my future grandchildren are in danger. This is too much, can’t you see?”
I shook my head and walked away from him, my arms waving at my sides, not caring if anyone in the house was watching. “No, I won’t do it. I won’t manipulate lives around for something that should be beyond my control. If she wants to fall in love let her. Fate has a way of finding people anyway, doesn’t it?”
“You’re right about that one, Pippa,” he said, getting to his feet. “Fate will always find you.”
He walked himself over to the garden gate and disappeared into a faint shimmer that appeared and disappeared in a blink.
He didn’t even say good-bye.