#11–Light
Ghosts don’t scare me. My mother told me ghosts have no power in the world of matter. My grandmother had started to say something but my mother hushed her.
“She doesn’t have to find out about that just yet,” my mother had declared. I was nine at the time. My grandmother died when I was eleven; my mother when I was fourteen. I’d often wondered what secret I never got to learn. Then on my last case I’d discovered that there are spiritual entities that can physically affect the human world.
Once you’ve seen a hotel bed flip sideways and smash through a closet door an unseen entity turning the pages of a book is not terrifying. Impressive, evidence of an active intelligence, but not intrinsically frightening. Even as I watched, another page lifted and was smoothed down on the other side, the unseen fingers caressing the paper. I wasn’t scared, not of someone who treated a book that way: not just turning the pages, but actually reading. As I moved into the room I saw that my bookmark had been left in place halfway through the book.
Taking a candle off the mantelpiece, I found matches nearby. The wick blossomed into flame. I turned. Candlelight found a shadow where the florescent light had shown nothing. Now I could see a slim brown hand guide the next page through its rotation. I set the candle in its holder beside the book and asked:
“Would you like more light?”
We looked at one another over the shining expanse of page. She was dark and elegant and her eyes were the color of coffee. As I stared, they brimmed over and I felt tears run down my own cheeks.
“I can see you where this strange light falls on your face,” she responded, “You are me, but you are white. Is this a dream?”
“Not exactly. Why are you crying, Susan?”
“Old Massa caught me reading. He locked me in here while he decides how to punish me.”
“Reading’s not a crime!”
“It is if you be a slave.”
If I’d been tasered, I would have felt less shock. Staring into Susan’s face was seeing the photographic negative of myself. The light of the spirit world fell through her to cast my image into the present. Love of reading and of books had sustained me in reform school; education had enabled me to rebuild my life after the disaster of my parents’ death. In this incarnation those same qualities exposed Susan to harsh penalties, maybe even death. I knew, I knew in my very bone, that she could not keep away from books…or newspapers…or any scrap of reading matter that fell before her eyes. I was the same way.
“I must help you!” I said.
She shook her head. “I would give anything to have my own name back but I’m well on the way to forgetting that myself.”
Tears were running into the corners of my mouth, tasting like salt and ashes on my tongue. “I’ll find a way to restore your name,” I promised, “but Susan! Tell me what year it is.”
“1859. Today’s my birthday. I’m sixteen years old.”
So she had already been in the hands of the Winslows for nearly two years. I scarcely remembered my American history but was pretty sure Lincoln hadn’t even been elected President yet. I knew the Civil War had lasted four years and I sort of thought that Lee had surrendered in April of 1865. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she had ‘only’ six or seven more years of slavery. At her age that was half a lifetime.
“It will come. Susan, you will be free again, I swear it.”
Her eyes dropped to the page. She no longer believed in a future. “This man in the book sounds like a bad man. He runs away from his wife and baby son.”
I craned my neck to see the passage her hand rested on. The book was a scholarly Life of Buddha and Susan was reading the section where the youthful prince had rushed out of his father’s palace.
“To my mind he fits the category of a clinically depressed person. He had everything but life didn’t satisfy him. He was sad all the time because he wasn’t spiritually fulfilled.”
She nodded. “I know people like that.”
Turning her head, she looked over her shoulder into darkness. “Old Massa’s coming back! I’ve got to go!”
The moment she stepped out of the circle of candlelight she vanished. I heard her footsteps, the sound of the door and then a heavy tread. Then Susan’s voice, but it had changed. Instead of her prim Philadelphia diction, she drawled:
“Massa, I done seen an angel, an angel of the Lord. She come down from heaven in a holy light and she say to Pharaoh, ‘Let the house of the Israelites go free!”. So Massa, don’t beat me. I won’t cut up dem papers for dress patterns.”
“What are you talking about, Jenny?”
“I need some paper to make de patterns for Miz Arabella’s new dress. I had de paper in me hand, jus’ lookin’ at it, Massa, just looking, wondering if you be done wid it.”
There was a smack, then muffled sobbing.
“Don’t lie to me, Jenny,” said ‘Massa’ Roderick, “You have all kinds of airs that don’t befit your station. As it happens, I have a moment of leisure to deal with you and I have already decided that you shall not be beaten.”
Through her sobs, I heard a mangled thank you. My muscles were straining as the sounds of their conversation faded. My stomach knotted as the slave owner continued:
“You did very well by my son, Jenny, but now that he is married he has no time for you, as is proper and commendable. You can hardly expect him to be otherwise and you should think yourself fortunate not to be sold to another household. Arabella says that with more training you will be a fine lady’s maid so as long as you continue to give satisfaction there, your position with the family is assured. I’m sorry about the baby. You realize you could hardly be allowed to keep him since there was a danger that he might grow up to resemble my son too much. So what I have decided is that you will do a suitable penance in your closet for this transgression, Jenny. Come with me now and I will lock you in. Later this evening, I may pay you a visit. And if you should have a girl next time, I’ll let you keep it.”
I strained to listen. Silence. The stove crackled as wood shifted within it. A blast of wind rattled the windows and cold air ghosted across the room. The candle flame wobbled, making the shadows bump and grind like bodies twisting together. I blew it out. I searched the huge free-standing wardrobe and found two more summer-weight blankets to add to the one on the bed. I grabbed my winter coat. Crawling into bed, I curled up and spread the warm coat over everything else. I felt cold, and confused. The book lay open on the desk, the lamp shining down, the pages reflecting the light like a small moon. Even when I switched off the lamp the open pages glowed faintly.
Some people think that discovering previous lives is romantic; I found Susan’s plight shattering. She brought me face to face with the darkest aspect of American history in the most personal way. Aside from that, every re-birth means all the angst of life to do over again and yet another death to suffer. Susan’s circumstances had been dire and her final oblivion complete. She was only remembered by a false name on forged papers…I had made a promise that I would restore her true name but I had no idea how to do that.
A sound jerked me awake. According to my watch on the table, hours had passed. Outside the wind pushed against the building with palpable force. As I lay struggling to pull mind and body together, I heard the cry again. It sounded like a baby wailing. Tiny hands clawed at the window. I couldn’t move. Invisible hands pinned me down.
Susan screamed, “Gideon!”
