Spirit of Gettysburg: Soulmates Across Time

Chapter 9

"Please, may I explain my self-confidence? In my career as a professional psychic I've released many troubled spirits into the light. One really stands out, an eighteenth century female slave haunting an estate in Calvert County, Maryland. She repeatedly threw my client's draperies onto the floor, her form of spring house cleaning."

She paused, raised her right hand and gave him the Scout's three finger salute. "Scout's honor, a true story. I sent her back home to God." His stare was freezing rain cold. This was getting nowhere. She said goodbye and left. His white coffin of death attitude was killing her confidence.

Maureen returned to the present. Wow, she shook her head, that seemed a lifetime ago, although it was only weeks. She slowed for a traffic light.

She was almost home. Home, what a lovely word! She never had a real home before. With her mother it was one rental place after another and as an adult she was too poor to buy a house. Not anymore, she smiled and glanced at the printed directions on the passenger seat. A mile more! Minutes later she parked the car in Cavalry Manor's gravel driveway and turned off the ignition. Slouching against the upholstery, she surveyed her new home.

Author's Note:  Next Chapters Tuesday!

He raised his voice. "Don't live there. It's dangerous. I'm perplexed as to why your uncle left it to you instead of selling it." He caught her eye and held it.

She knew why. Her ghost husband requested it. Her uncle and the ghost were friends. Uncle Brucie knew the ghost's connection to her and wanted them together. Her spirit explained all this to her during his final visit. He also told her she had failed him and would soon know the particulars.

She squirmed in her chair. Mr. Steinberg's concern for her welfare touched her but she knew her ghost wouldn't hurt her.

"We're at cross purposes, sir. I'm sorry for offending you, but I'm moving in immediately."

His expression was cement hard and he brushed aside her comments. "Living there would place you in dire straits. He's a bad one."

Enough already! "Sir, I truly respect your opinion. I'll be careful. Thanks for doing your duty, but," her hands gripped her knees, "dead spirits, no matter how bad people say they are, don't scare me. People terrify me with their unpredictability and deliberate cruelty."

Her leg was shaking. She stopped jiggling it and muzzled her words. He didn't need to know her pervasive fear of humans. But, was her ghost indeed bad? Did she truly know him? Was there a side to him she was unaware of?

Queasiness swamped her solar plexus, her internal psychic warning signal of looming trouble. "I'd like to hear about this bad ghost."

"Humph, humph," Mr. Steinberg blew his nose in a tissue, crumpled it and tossed it into the wire trash basket by his desk. "He's a male."

"Great start!"

His voice was condescending. "A Rebel soldier in the U.S. Civil War. You're probably unfamiliar with the history of that bloody war. It's a multifaceted subject." His demeanor screamed that she was an idiot like most of her generation and didn't know or understand history.