CHAPTER THREE
1438 Words
CHAPTER THREE
Carly hesitated before turning the doorknob to enter her sister’s bedroom.
The sign on the door said:
KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING
That sign had hung there ever since she and Megan were teenagers. Carly could remember ignoring the warning just once back then, and she also remembered the screaming adolescent tantrum Megan had thrown about it. She’d respected her sister’s privacy after that.
It still feels like I ought to knock first, Carly thought.
But if she did, of course, no one was going to answer—not anymore.
Even on her infrequent visits home, Carly had seldom been inside her sister’s bedroom. Once, years ago, she’d entered in a vain search for any sign from the sister she presumed to be dead. But Carly had learned early on that the dead didn’t necessarily respond to her call, so the lack of results hadn’t been shocking.
Carly wasn’t at all sure what she hoped to find out now. But she had to give this a try, and this morning was the best time to go in there. Mom and Dad had gone off to work before Carly had awakened. She had gotten up and dressed and fixed herself toast and coffee for breakfast. Now she had the house to herself and wouldn’t have to answer any questions about why she was poking around in Megan’s room.
Carly cautiously turned the doorknob and pushed open the door and stopped breathing for a moment at what she saw.
The room was filled by an otherworldly glow from the morning sunlight slanting in through the window. As she stepped inside, Carly felt as though she’d been transported back in time. Even the posters of Megan’s male teenage pop idols were still hanging on the wall, and her desk was neatly arranged as if she might have homework to do after school today.
There wasn’t a speck of dust in sight, not even afloat in the beaming sunlight. Which meant, of course, that Mom had never stopped taking care of this room, cleaning and dusting and always keeping it exactly as Megan had left it, as if she might return at any time. For a long moment Carly had the strange feeling that a youthful Megan still haunted this timeless place.
But she was yanked abruptly back to the present at the sight of her own reflection in the mirror on the dresser. She saw no trace of the confused and shy youngster who had grown up in this house. This was her own mature face, wide gray eyes beneath dark brows, and full, serious lips. Normally tied back, her long black hair was hanging free today.
And in the present time, Megan had been gone for many years.
As she had before, Carly wondered—had her sister meant to leave for good? She’d taken nothing with her. She hadn’t packed for a trip or taken extra money out of her bank account. She hadn’t even taken her most treasured possession, a water globe with two frolicking dolphins inside. Instead of the fake snow found in ordinary snow globes, the dolphins were engulfed in whirling bubbles.
Looking at it now, Carly remembered what Megan had said about the scene contained in that globe.
“It’s my secret place.”
Megan would spend long minutes at a time staring raptly into the globe, as if she wanted to join the dolphins in their aquatic ballet.
And maybe that’s what she finally did.
Maybe she went looking for her dolphins.
Carly flashed back to the vision that had brought her back home in the first place—her glimpse of Megan standing on a beach at the edge of the surf looking out over the ocean at a golden sunset. Megan was no longer the teenager she’d been when she’d disappeared, but a woman nearly Carly’s age, looking like Megan would look if she were still alive.
The vision had been the first hint Carly had gotten in all these years that Megan might still be alive. Although that had come to her as a message from her dead childhood friend, Tyler had been silent since then. Alone now in Megan’s room, she hoped to get a similar insight—something more specific and informative.
Of course, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to communicate directly with Megan—at least not if Megan was alive. Her earlier vision of Megan on the beach had come to her by way of the spirit of their deceased childhood friend, Tyler.
“I came here just to show you something,” Tyler had said before he’d shown her the scene.
She picked up the water globe and sat down in an antique rocking chair.
She gave the globe a shake, making it look as though the dolphins were leaping and dancing. Rocking herself gently, she closed her eyes, trying to visualize the scene at the beach again.
But nothing came.
Carly groaned and rotated her shoulder, which was still sore from the knife wound she’d received on her last case. She wondered if maybe it was the pain that was distracting her.
“Tyler, are you there?” she murmured aloud. “Can you help me find Megan?”
There was still no reply.
After a minute or two of failed effort, she opened her eyes and looked at the water globe still cradled in her hands. The bubbles had settled down and the dolphins no longer appeared to be dancing, and Carly didn’t bother to shake the globe again.
A familiar frustration crept over her. She wondered as she often did—what was the point in being able to connect with the dead? How could it possibly be a “gift”? Even at their best, the messages came in hints and riddles, seldom as anything forthright and coherent, and she sometimes found herself unable to make any sense of them.
Almost as if the beyond is taunting me, she thought.
Not that her gift never proved to be useful. To the contrary, it had definitely helped in her law enforcement work. She couldn’t count the number of times a spirit had reached out to her and offered hints that made it possible to solve some sort of a homicide case.
Of course, she couldn’t tell anybody about these communications—not even her trusted partner, mentor, and friend Lyle Ramsey. She always had to make it look as though she worked things out solely through ordinary investigative methods.
Ever since Tyler had appeared in that vision, she’d wondered whether maybe now, at long last, she could use her gift for her own sake, and for the sake of people she loved.
If that was so, why was she coming up with nothing right now—not even a flicker of communication from Tyler or anybody else’s spirit?
Maybe I was wrong, she thought with a despairing sigh.
For all she really knew, Tyler’s “communication” had been nothing more than a product of her imagination. Indeed, she sometimes did mistake her own fantasies and musings for genuine communications.
Maybe that’s what happened this time.
Maybe Megan isn’t even really alive at all.
Maybe it was even wrong of Carly to hope otherwise.
She gave the globe another shake but this time the bubbles looked just like ordinary bubbles, and the dolphins like nothing more than plastic toys.
I shouldn’t have come home, she thought.
Then again, she could think of one good thing that had come of her visit. Until last night, Mom had never told her she wasn’t the first woman in the family to have her strange ability. Carly wished she’d known her great-grandmother, who had died before she was born.
Maybe Grammie could have told me what my gift is good for, she thought.
Maybe then Carly wouldn’t feel so alone.
Meanwhile, Carly could only hope that she could iron things out with her parents during the few days she planned to be here. But the truth was, she seldom really enjoyed their company, and they didn’t seem to enjoy hers. They were both bitter, unhappy people, and although Carly felt sorry for them, there was nothing she could do to fix their lives.
After just one night here, she more than half-wished she was on her way back to her apartment in Glensted, Virginia.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.
Carly was startled. Surely everyone who lived here in Currie knew that her parents would both be at work at this time of morning.
So who could that be?
- Writer
