I thought of what Ruby and Christine had said about clothing being somehow invested with the emotional energy of the women who made it and wore it. Perhaps buildings, too, absorb the emotional energy of the people who live there. Maybe they hold energy in the same way a battery stores power, and release it under the right conditions, when somebody receptive comes along.
I frowned. One trouble with that theory was that the “receptive” somebody ought to be Ruby Wilcox, not China Bayles. Ruby is the one who’s in touch with the Universe. I’m the skeptic, remember? I’m the realist, the pragmatist, the doubter who only believes in what she can touch, taste, smell, see, weigh, and measure. Why was I the one who had heard that humming? And why now? I’ve lived and worked in this building for years, and I’ve never seen a sign of anything out of the ordinary—until this week.
By this time, I had talked myself out of the notion of going upstairs to get that carton. It could wait until somebody else arrived and we could go into the storeroom together. Having made this executive decision, I headed for the kitchen, where I fed Khat, brewed myself a cup of coffee, and snagged one of the carrot mini-muffins Cass had baked for today’s lunch. I popped it in the microwave for a few seconds, then, coffee and muffin in hand, I headed for the shop to set things up for the day.
The first phone call of the morning came before I’d even finished my muffin. Kelly Sutherland, who is teaching wreath-making classes at the shop this fall, was phoning to check on the dates. “I want to put the classes in my email newsletter,” she said.
“Hang on a sec, Kelly,” I said. Holding the phone in one hand and my coffee cup in the other, I turned to the bulletin board to check the list I had posted two days before under the attractive caption I’d made with red, yellow, and green magnetic letters: FALL CLASSES.
But FALL CLASSES wasn’t what it said now. Now, the bright red letter F and two orange Ss were turned upside down and pushed off to one side. The other letters were arranged in two new words: ALL LACES.
The family photograph that had been pinned to the board yesterday—the man and woman in the porch swing with a baby and a little girl—was still there, but it had been turned upside down and there were two sprigs of fresh lavender tucked behind it. And as I stood there, staring at the board, the bell over my door dinged gleefully. I was being laughed at.
I stood stock-still, feeling as though playful fingers had just reached through the curtain between the world we know and the world we don’t and messed up my hair. Was this a message of some kind? For me? After a moment, I muttered something unintelligible and turned the photo right side up. The bell gave one final ding, sort of like a hiccup, and stopped giggling.
“I’m sorry,” Kelly said hesitantly, on the other end of the line. “I didn’t quite hear that. What did you say, China?”
I cleared my throat and tried again. “Um, looks like we’re on for the first and third Saturdays in October, one to three in the afternoon. Are those dates still okay?”
“Yes, thank you,” Kelly said. “I’ll put that in the newsletter. I’m hoping for a good enrollment.” She laughed lightly. “You want to know what I thought I heard, China?”
I didn’t, but she told me anyway.
“I thought you said, ‘The ghost did it.’ Isn’t that crazy?”
I made my voice firm. “Yes. It is positively crazy. Why would I say a thing like that?”
But that, of course, was what I had said. “The ghost did it.”
Yes, the ghost. The ghost who hummed the Scottish folk tune in an empty room. The ghost who fetched a photo from the carton on the shelf and pinned it, not just once but twice—and with not just one but two sprigs of lavender—to the bulletin board. The ghost who rearranged the letters to announce ALL LACES and then laughed at me. My dream ghost. The ghost I didn’t believe in.
The ghost did it.
And at that thought, my lawyerly self jumped to her feet and shouted, Objection! I object, Your Honor! The statement assumes facts not in evidence, authentication is lacking and improper. Then added, for good measure, Vague, and a waste of the court’s time, too.
My mouth tightened. My prosecutorial self had the more cogent argument, I was sure. Assumes facts not in evidence, very definitely. In fact, facts not in evidence is the very essence of ghosthood, is it not? If I were Her Honor, I would certainly sustain my objection.
But in this case, I was also the witness who had to testify to what I had heard. And as counsel for the defense, I was looking at the physical evidence—the bulletin board, my bulletin board—right in front of me. I was in uncharted territory here, and I couldn’t for the life of me see my way forward.
I said good-bye to Kelly, then aimed my cell phone at the bulletin board and shot a picture. Then I put the letters back the way they were supposed to be (FALL CLASSES) and took the photo down. I glanced at it again, then picked up my magnifying glass to study it. If the ghost—or something—was using it to communicate with me, I ought to take a better look. Who were these people? When was the photo taken? And why this particular photo, instead of another one?
A couple, sitting on a wooden swing on what was undeniably my veranda, with my front door visible to the left in the photo and my front windows behind the swing. Husband and wife, I assumed. A baby and a little girl. The
