Spirit of Gettysburg: Soulmates Across Time

Chapter 16

She pulled back from the past and focused on the present. She wondered for the zillionth time when her psychic ability and clairvoyance would return. Since her mother's death they were hibernating, a sleeping giant she longed to shake awake. She needed them in this quest to help her spirit.

She shouldered the wind and several minutes later scampered towards the Presbyterian Church Cemetery across the road and up the street from the Sunshine Gateway Mart. The cemetery's gate was half-open. She stood and stared at the graveyard's worn headstones.

Do all cemeteries look alike? Her mind drifted back to her childhood and to Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church's cemetery two blocks from her apartment.

She loved to wander the church's three hundred-year-old cemetery looking at angel gravestone markers. They fascinated her and she found the cemetery peaceful. Maureen feared the living not the dead and relished the solitude. It was her escape from her mother's daily tantrums.

Her mother was buried in the cemetery by a stunted white oak tree. On her headstone was a smiling angel clasping a baby lamb to its bosom. Ironic, since her mother's nurturing capacity was minimal. On one of her jaunts Maureen discovered a Confederate soldier's grave by a dried-up creek. It was weed-chocked and forlorn looking. The grave depressed her. The headstone on his grave read "Unknown." That was the poor soul's name, "Unknown." The word filled her with inexplicable rage and haunting despair.

She knew some long ago, grieving Southern mother knew his name and it was not unknown. Maureen imagined no greater calamity than dying in a war far from home, dumped into an anonymous grave and categorized as unknown. She felt the pain of those left behind who never knew their loved one's fate.

On Sunday mornings after church she placed a single, smooth red rose on the grave. She was shown his death only once. It horrified her.

The teenager, familiar and cozy, with shoulder-length, dark auburn curls, a sweet, oval face, button nose and dimpled chin, had died in agony. Artillery fire killed him, blowing him into eternity on a grassy, blood-stained field. His bright, black-flecked, emerald eyes stared fixedly into a future that would never be.

She shut the vision down and briefly covered her face with her hands. She loathed seeing his violent death.

Maureen bolted for the Sunshine Gateway Mart yards away. Catching her breath, she entered the store, the single bell over the front door announcing her arrival with an irritating clang. She moseyed up to the cash register counter.

A woman rich in chins, her make-up a perfectly blended mixture of garish colors, her platinum blond hair flawlessly cut and combed into a smooth, shoulder-length pageboy, slouched on a vinyl bar stool behind it.

She read a gossip rag on top of the low counter. In her hair was a crimson headband. She wore a tight, zebra-striped sweater and tighter black leggings. A cigarette dangled from the side of her mouth.

She stamped out her cigarette and glanced at Maureen with indifference. "Hubby Hal, I told ya a week ago to fix that frigging bell!" She lit a fresh cancer stick, took a hearty drag and blew smoke into the air.

That screech! Her voice pierced Maureen's ears like a hot needle.

The woman returned to the gossip rag, took another drag of her cigarette and blew smoke out of her nostrils like a demented dragon.

Maureen's jaw dropped. Huh, so much for customer service. "Hello, that wind is brutal, brrr. I need to buy some stuff. I bet you get that a lot, huh?"

The woman ignored her.

Was her rudeness for real? Maureen coughed. "I need chunky peanut butter, bread, etc. Where are they, please?"

Annoyance hiked across the woman's wrinkled, doughy face. She jerked her thumb towards the back of the store, licked her index finger and turned another page.

"Fascinating read, eh." Maureen grumbled. She seized a cart and shopped. Twenty minutes later she hauled the groceries to the scratched, greasy counter and paid.

The woman put the magazine aside and nonchalantly returned the change. "Sorry, I gotta have my gossip fix." She looked Maureen over. "Say, you're a newbie around town." She stuck out her hand and gave her a welcoming smile. "I'm Big Margie and you are?"

"Maureen McAlister. I just moved in down the street." She shook Big Margie's beefy hand. She liked the strength of it.

Big Margie abruptly withdrew her hand. Her eyes were buggy. "Maureen McAlister! Brucie's mysterious, D.C. niece! Awesome! Ya come to live in his haunted house. Brucie said ya would come."

Maureen silently stared at her.

Big Margie stamped out her cigarette in the ashtray, slammed her white, generic cigarette packet on the counter, pulled out another cigarette, lit it with a purple rhinestone encrusted lighter, took a super puff and blew a fresh smoke ring into the air, carefully avoiding Maureen's face. "Welcome to Adams County, Maureen McAlister from that awful Washington. We've been expecting ya, dearie." Her voice was sweet.

Author's Note:  Next update Saturday!