Time Well Spent as a Ghost

Chapter 7

"Well, let me think a minute. In the seventies it was a dairy. Milk, eggs, apples, and blackberries. It wasn't until the forties that the younger generation started planting." Mrs. Biddle was tallying up estimates on a pad of paper. "You know, there's a hand-carved dining table and a hutch in the pantry that I could take right off your hands."

I was at the Antique Keep with the items from the basement that I'd reconditioned. I was also looking at shelves of baskets, not sure what I was looking for but not seeing anything that looked even the slightest bit haunted. "Uh, that hutch is bolted to the wall, I believe." I didn't mention that the kitchen table she was referring to now inexplicably had a plate sized scorch mark and would soon be kindling. "Wait. What? You mean the eighteen–seventies? I thought the house was built at the turn of the century."

"Oh no, sometime in the 1850's. Matter of fact, the first Crickler had a contract with the Union Army. The generations after that got the orchards going. The family was never wealthy but they kept up with the times in a steady way, modernizing the house and farm." As she answered the phone, I looked at what she'd added up. The prices seemed fair but I was really just breaking even after what I'd spent on hardware. I listened as she talked with a customer about a text message she'd received. She was a funny old bird. There was an antique cash register on the counter, but on the table against the wall sat a laptop, another computer showing the home page for the Antique Keep's website, a laser printer, and a credit card swipe machine. Obviously, Mrs. Biddle believed in keeping up with the times as well.

Now I was off to the village. The picture frames I'd redesigned into mirrors no longer looked like antiques so Mrs. Biddle suggested I try the consignment shop on Main Street. The young guy behind the counter stood up from the textbook he was reading and took the mirrors into a back room. While I looked around I noticed that some of the shelves contained the same items that were in the Antique Keep, but they looked new, like they'd never been used in a practical way. I walked toward the back of the store, trying to eavesdrop. Then I saw it. Sitting among the antique crockery and tin coffee pots was a basket that looked identical to the ethereal one the young woman had been holding. The handle and sides were made of wood and there was mesh wire on the front and back, only this one had a small wooden basket that fit perfectly down inside of it.

As I cashed out the kid glared at me, disinterested, and wrote up the consignment contract. After the cost of the basket, I had just enough left for a mocha latte to take to the park. I thought I'd relax for a minute and get a jolt of caffeine while simultaneously ensuring that Cody would be down for a nap this afternoon.

I needed to do some more online research about the coin. The information I'd found this morning had to be wrong. Roughly the size of a dime, the gold coin was dated 1878 and had a picture of an Indian woman on one side and on the other side a ribbon surrounding the "1 dollar" engraving. Although an expert would have to determine the grading, it was supposedly worth anywhere from $800 – $1,200. I couldn't begin to understand how it had found its way onto Cody's windowsill.

What I had to do was to think like a ghost ... or in other words, think about the unexplainable things that have been happening as if they weren't just freak occurrences but were somehow logically connected. So, if the real estate ads burst into flames right in front of me, and then Cody's window was closed against a sudden storm, I thought it was probably safe to conclude that we weren't in any immediate danger from whatever seemed to be happening around us on an unearthly realm or on some other celestial plane. Did she, whoever "she" was, not want us to leave?

So, this morning before we left the house I had placed today's paper on the kitchen table, opened to the real estate section. I'd circled an ad for a house on Parkview Lane, 3,500 square feet, three bedrooms and baths, a country kitchen, and a screened in porch. Nice, actually. I called the real estate agent and loudly set up an appointment, which I then canceled while Cody and I were driving the see Mrs. Biddle. Strange behavior for a grown woman, I know, and this probably isn't the way it works in the supernatural world, whatever that is. It was the only idea I had, though. I was just going to wait and see if she called the bluff.

***

I helped get Myles out the door the next morning and then stumbled down to the kitchen, hoping to enjoy the quiet before Cody woke up. The mid-September weather had chilled the house. With flannel pants tucked into my wool socks, I pulled my hair up into a bun and went into the pantry to find a box of tea. Suddenly, I felt a sharp, shooting pain on the bottom of my right foot as I instinctively lifted it off the floor. Limping to the bench under the window, I twisted my ankle around and found a piece of thick, clear glass lodged deep in my heel. I pulled it out carefully and removed my sock to find a clean cut about an inch long but with surprisingly little blood. Looking up, I saw that the floor was littered with shards of heavy glass. The light bulb and glass domed fixture overhead weren't shattered. I carefully swept up the pieces, placing them in a box to be recycled. What had broken? Scanning the shelves I saw the usual stock up of canned goods, boxes of tissue, laundry detergent. I turned around and tried the door knob but found the back door securely locked. Myles would have mentioned breaking something and anyway he was running so late this morning he'd gone from the bedroom to the front door planning to get coffee on the way to school.

The realization that there wasn't an easy explanation for this caused a sudden chill up my spine. Was "she" doing this? I was standing in the very place where I'd seen her that day. I turned toward the kitchen and noticed that on the shelf near the door was the bottom half of a broken glass. I looked closer at it's jagged, splintered edges and it seemed to be some sort of canning jar. I tipped it toward me and saw that along with slivers of glass it contained two gold coins. I held my breath and set it back down.

I limped into the kitchen and for a minute just listened to the silence. I tossed the coins down on the table so they'd clink and spin loudly, echoing through the quiet house. I felt angry, frightened, and exhilarated all at the same time.

So ... coins and broken glass. There was just no way I could be imagining this. As I sat thinking, I watched the pale steam from my mug of tea rise in curling loops and disappear into thin air. How exactly do you talk with a ghost? Buy a Ouija board? Hire a psychic? I needed a game plan. And I knew I had to do this alone or risk sounding like a raving lunatic.