'A seance.' David rubbed his hands together. 'Now where did I leave my turban?'
When Hayley burst into throaty laughter, Stella rapped her knuckles on the table. 'If we could control
the hilarity? I thought we'd start with something a little more mundane. Like trying to date her.'
'I've never dated a ghost,' David mused, 'but I'm up for it.'
'Get her time period,' Stella said with a slanted look for David. 'By what she's wearing. We might be able to pinpoint when she lived, or at least get an estimate.'
'Discovery through fashion.' Roz nodded as she picked up a cookie. 'That's good.'
'Smart,' Hayley agreed. 'But I didn't really notice what she had on. I only got a glimpse.'
'A gray dress,' Roz put in. 'High-necked. Long sleeves.'
'Can any of us sketch?' Stella asked. 'I'm all right with straight lines and curves, but I'd be hopeless
with figures.'
'Roz is your girl.' David patted Roz on the shoulder.
'Can you draw her, Roz? Your impression of her?'
'I can sure give it a shot.'
'I bought notebooks.' Stella offered one and made Roz smile.
'Of course you did. And I bet your pencils are all nicely sharpened, too. Just like the first day of school.'
'Hard to write with them otherwise. David, while she's doing that, why don't you tell us your experiences with ... I guess we'll call her the Harper Bride for now.'
'Only had a few, and all back when I was a kid, hanging out here with Harper.'
'What about the first time?'
'You never forget your first.' He winked at her, and after sitting, poured himself coffee. 'I was bunking in with Harper, and we were pretending to be asleep so Roz didn't come in and lower the boom. We
were whispering—'
'They always thought they were,' Roz said as she sketched.
'I think it was spring. I remember we had the windows open, and there was a breeze. I'd have been around nine. I met Harper in school, and even though he was a year behind me, we hit it off. We hadn't known each other but a few weeks when I came over to spend the night. So we were there, in the dark, thinking we were whispering, and he told me about the ghost. I thought he was making it up to scare me, but he swore all the way up to the needle in his eye that it was true, and he'd seen her lots of times.
'We must've fallen asleep. I remember waking up, thinking somebody had stroked my head. I thought it was Roz, and I was a little embarrassed, so I squinted one eye open to see.'
He sipped coffee, narrowing his eyes as he searched for the memory. 'And I saw her. She walked over
to Harper's bed and bent over him, the way you do when you kiss a child on the top of the head. Then she walked across the room. There was a rocking chair over in the corner. She sat down and started to rock, and sing.'
He set the coffee down. 'I don't know if I made some sound, or moved, or what, but she looked right
at me. She smiled. I thought she was crying, but she smiled. And she put her finger to her lips as if to
tell me to hush. Then she disappeared.'
'What did you do?' Hayley whispered the question, reverently.
'I pulled the covers over my head, and stayed under till morning.'
'You were afraid of her?' Stella prompted.
'Nine-year-old, ghost—and I have a sensitive nature, so sure. But I didn't stay afraid. In the morning it seemed like a dream, but a nice one. She'd stroked my hair and sung to me. And she was pretty. No rattling chains or bloodless howls. She seemed a little like an angel, so I wasn't afraid of her. I told
Harper about it in the morning, and he said we must be brothers, because none of his other friends
got to see her.'
He smiled at the memory. 'I felt pretty proud of that, and looked forward to seeing her again. I saw her a few more times when I was over. Then, when I was about thirteen the—we'll say visitations—stopped.'
'Did she ever speak to you?'
'No, she'd just sing. That same song.'
'Did you only see her in the bedroom, at night?'
'No. There was this time we all camped out back. It was summer, hot and buggy, but we nagged Roz until she let all of us sleep out there in a tent. We didn't make it through the night 'cause Mason cut his foot on a rock. Remember that, Roz?'
'I do. Two o'clock in the morning, and I'm packing four kids in the car so I can take one of them to the ER for stitches.'
'We were out there before sunset, out near the west edge of the property. By ten we were all of us half sick on hot dogs and marshmallows, and had spooked ourselves stupid with ghost stories. Lightning bugs were out,' he murmured, closing his eyes. 'Past midsummer then, and steamy. We'd all stripped down
to our underwear. The younger ones fell asleep, but Harper and I stayed up for a while. A long while. I must've conked out, because the next thing I knew, Harper was shaking my shoulder. 'There she is,' he said, and I saw her, walking in the garden.'
'Oh, my God,' Hayley managed, and edged closer to David as Stella continued to type. 'What happened then?'
'Well, Harper's hissing in my ear about how we should go follow her, and I'm trying to talk him out of it without sacrificing my manhood. The other two woke up, and Harper said he was going, and we could stay behind if we were yellow coward dogs.'
'I bet that got you moving,' Stella commented.
'Being a yellow coward dog isn't an option for a boy in the company of other boys. We all got moving. Mason couldn't've been but six, but he was trotting along at the rear, trying to keep up. There was moonlight, so we could see her, but Harper said we had to hang back some, so she didn't see us.
'I swear there wasn't a breath of air that night, not a whisper of it to stir a leaf. She didn't make a sound as she walked along the paths, through the shrubs. There was something different about her that night.
I didn't realize what it was until long after.'
'What?' Breathless, Hayley leaned forward, gripped his arm. 'What was different about her that night?'
'Her hair was down. Always before, she'd had it up. Sort of sweet and old-fashioned ringlets spiraling down from the top of her head. But that night it was down, and kind of wild, spilling down her back, over her shoulders. And she was wearing something white and floaty. She looked more like a ghost that night than she ever did otherwise. And I was afraid of her, more than I was the first time, or ever was again. She moved off the path, walked over the flowers without touching them. I could hear my own breath pant in and out, and I must've slowed down because Harper was well ahead. She was going toward the old stables, or maybe the carriage house.'
'The carriage house?' Hayley almost squealed it. 'Where Harper lives?'
'Yeah. He wasn't living there then,' he added with a laugh. 'He wasn't more than ten. It seemed like she was heading for the stables, but she'd have to go right by the carriage house. So, she stopped, and she turned around, looking back. I know I stopped dead then, and the blood just drained out of me.'
'I guess!' Hayley said, with feeling.
'She looked crazy, and that was worse than dead somehow. Before' I could decide whether to run after Harper, or hightail it like a yellow coward dog, Mason screamed. I thought somehow she'd gotten him, and damn near screamed myself. But Harper came flying back. Turned out Mason had gashed his foot open on a rock. When I looked back toward the old stables, she was gone.'
He stopped, shuddered, then let out a weak laugh. 'Scared myself.'
'Me, too,' Hayley managed.
'He needed six stitches.' Roz scooted the notebook toward Stella. 'That's how she looks to me.'
'That's her.' Stella studied the sketch of the thin, sad-eyed woman. 'Is this how she looked to you, David?'
'Except that one night, yeah.'
'Hayley?'
'Best I can tell.'
'Same for me. This shows her in fairly simple dress, nipped-in waist, high neck, front buttons. Okay, the
