Chapter Seven

Mel knew when to back off, and that’s just what she did when Mikey told her they’d be up to the house in a few minutes. Something was happening, but Dougal had it under control, and Mikey was helping. Now was the perfect time to follow up with those calls to people who were hopefully in the know.

“So you’ve never heard of a ghost awakening after almost thirty-five years?” she asked Belle in Utah over the phone.

“No, not at all. I’ve heard of the awakening, but it usually happens within seconds of the person dying. Let me know what you find out, though. Now you have me intrigued.”

Intrigued was a small word for what Mel was dealing with. She was on fire with curiosity to know what had happened to keep this spirit unawakened.

Her next three calls were more of the same. No one knew of stasis like that for a soul. Where had Eileen been this whole time? What had triggered her reanimation?

Finally Esther answered her phone in Nova Scotia. Mel had called her first, but when she didn’t get more than an answering machine she decided to move along to get to the bottom of this.

“Oh, Esther, I’m so happy you answered. Do you have a minute?”

“I have a séance in twenty minutes, my darling girl, but I will make time for your precious inquisitiveness.”

That was one way to phrase Mel’s insatiable need to know. She realized that for most of her life, since her father had left, she’d only been marking time. She’d done what had to be done and not a whole lot more than that. Perhaps she was going through her own awakening, just on a different level.

“Thank you for picking up.”

“I knew you were going to call today but felt it necessary for you to reach out to others before I answered.”

Esther was a psychic who had worked for years in secret and more recently more openly. Due to there being more of an accepting nature for things outside the norm, she’d finally brought her talents to more than just those who knew from word of mouth.

“Well, thank you for feeling it was time to talk to me.” Mel was grateful for any help.

“It’s so interesting to talk with you,” Esther said. “I hear no censure in your voice, no anger that I didn’t answer earlier and help you as soon as I knew I could. Instead you just accept what is and then adapt. That is such as amazing ability.”

Even though she knew Esther couldn’t see her, Mel still ducked her head as she blushed. She cleared her throat. Played with a jelly bracelet. Straightened her ever-present bow behind her teased bangs. She had no answer for that. She didn’t know how to be any other way, and wasn’t that how you were supposed to be when someone did something?

Clearing her throat again, she soldiered on. “So I have this ghost that seems to have died in the eighties, but she just had her awakening.”

“Were you there for the awakening?” Curiosity and urgency coated the older woman’s voice.

“Yes, actually. She seemed catatonic, and then one of the residents asked her if someone had hurt her. She turned her head slowly, almost at a creepy pace, and then started screaming.”

“Fascinating. So few people see the awakening. You were blessed today, Melanie.”

Mel had to disagree with her on that. Her ears were still ringing from the noise. “I’d feel even more blessed if I could help her. Have you ever heard of something like this? No one else has.”

“Hmm.”

There was a beat of silence while Mel held her breath.

“I must warn you that it can be due to a significantly violent incident. It’s almost as if the ghost went into a coma for the brain to protect itself from the trauma. Did you take her around to see what triggered for her?”

Mel was grateful she could answer that with a positive. At least she’d done that right. “I did. She didn’t seem to recognize anything, but then she saw an older woman in town, and the screaming started again, and she remembered her own name. That’s something. Right?”

“Oh, that’s marvelous.”

It hadn’t felt marvelous when it was going on, and in fact it made Mel hesitate to do anything more. Was the screaming from pain? Not physical pain, necessarily, but mental, emotional? Mel never wanted to torture anyone.

“You won’t think it’s marvelous, but it can be. And it will be a release for her to tell her story, to know her story. If it’s left tucked away and hidden, then it could make it impossible for her to move on. Not everyone chooses to remain here on Earth. Some aren’t given entrance to either Heaven or Hell because they are blocked by their own misdirected energies.”

Mel sank into a chair. So she’d have to hurt her now, but then it would make it better later? She tried to think of it like the surgeries Becker did on dogs. If they had fatty tumors in their bellies that were going to put too much pressure on their lungs, Becker would remove them. Which meant he was cutting them open and hurting them, even if they couldn’t feel it until after they woke from the anesthesia. But in the end they were healed and lived for many more years because the pressure had been taken off.

“So how do I go about getting her to talk, when all she remembers is an old TV show and her first name?”