Merry, Merry Ghost

I entered Susan’s bedroom. A soft golden light spread near one corner of the ceiling. I was puzzled. The chandelier was dark. The only other light came from the Tiffany lamp on the nightstand. That was a small pool of white light…

A cold hand seemed to squeeze my heart.

The light from the Tiffany lamp illuminated the still figure lying on her left side in the bed.

Forever still.

“Oh.” I spoke aloud, a soft cry filled with sadness.

Suddenly, the limp right arm jerked upward and flopped.

Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps Susan lived. I zoomed to the bed. I bumped into someone and stepped on something. “Oh!”

“Ouch.” Susan Flynn’s voice was sharp and vigorous. “You’re standing on my foot.”

I jumped to one side.

“You kicked me.” The cultivated voice was aggrieved. “I don’t see anyone. Where are you? What’s happening? Why am I standing here and yet there I am on the bed? What’s wrong with me?” The arm was yanked this way and that. “Wake up.” Again the arm rose and fell.

“Susan, I’m here, but you can’t see me. If I can’t see you…” My words trailed away.

Susan was struggling against death, but there was nothing she could do.

I took a shaky breath. I’d signed up at the Department of Good Intentions to return to earth to help the living. I was, in fact, prohibited from contact with departed spirits (Precept Two). I’d dismissed that instruction from my mind. The idea that I would consort with a departed spirit was laughable.

I wasn’t laughing.

The golden glow near the ceiling shone with a compelling radiance.

“That light up there, it’s warm and beckoning.” Susan sounded farther away. The golden glow was pulling at her, urging her to come. “I must wake up. I have to take care of Keith.”

I should keep quiet, yet I felt compelled to console Susan. “Susan, I’m terribly sorry.” Was Wiggins frowning mightily in Tumbulgum? But I had to speak out. She was struggling to stay in the world, a struggle doomed to failure. I could help her realize that her time on earth was done.

Everything seemed out of order. Why did Susan have to die this night of all nights? “Susan, you’re dead.”

“Dead?” Her clear, resonant voice was stricken.

The side of the bed dipped and I knew she sat beside that still figure. A hand was lifted and held.

I reached out, found her arm. “I wish it weren’t so, I truly do. I hate for you to be dead.” That didn’t sound right. I didn’t want to discourage Susan. As soon as she let go of the world, she would find herself in a much better place, as Sydney Carton remarked so long ago.

She pulled away and scrambled to her feet. “I am not dead. I can see everything. I can talk and move about and I feel wonderful. Except I’m standing here”—she stamped a foot not far from the bed—“and I can’t make myself get out of bed. Besides”—her tone was reasonable as if making a rational point to herself—“I can’t be talking to someone who isn’t here.”

“I’m here.” At least I was present until orders were issued in Tumbulgum.

“Where are you? Who are you?” Her voice was thin and frightened.

For once I wished that Wiggins would arrive, gruff and irritable, fuming at my mistakes. He could tell me what to do. If I followed the rules (Precept Two), I would maintain silence, leave Susan to face eternity on her own.

I would not!

I cut my eyes around the room, quailing at my audacity. However, that bodacious thought should assure Wiggins’s arrival.

Not a sound. Not a sign.

Wiggins had always been quick to arrive when I departed from an emissary’s approved role. Of course, Tumbulgum was far distant and I supposed he couldn’t be in two places at once. Time zones and all that. He might find them confusing since there was no time in Heaven.

Whatever the reason, I faced up to a daunting truth: Wiggins wasn’t coming.

I was on my own.

I’d never felt so alone.

“I don’t understand.” Susan was frantic. The limp arm was shaken harder. “Wake up, wake up!”

I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. For good or ill, I refused to abandon Susan now. I swirled into being.

A gasp sounded.

I saw my reflection in the mirror of Susan’s dresser: flame-bright curls, hopeful freckled face, anxious green eyes. I hoped I appeared suitably subdued, a black cashmere sweater, single-strand pearl necklace, gray slacks, and black boots. Nothing flashy. Of course, redheads always look good in black, but that is simply a fact, nothing I’d taken into consideration.

“What are you doing here? Who are you?” Susan’s voice was frantic.

If I revealed the truth, she would be startled, but we had to deal with the facts. “I’m a ghost.” To heck with Wiggins’s preference for emissary. Facts are facts. “I was dispatched to keep watch over