The Ghost of Kathleen Murphy Read online

  December 5th. ‘She came again, this time in daylight while I was walking down near the cemetery. It is so quiet there I like to walk there after lunch every day. The Sisters don’t go there very often. I expect because they will lay dead there one day soon. It sort of sits and waits for them. But there was the ghost-girl and she was standing under the statue of the Virgin Mary and she was crying and talking to Mother Mary. I want to tell someone, but who do I trust?’

  December 8th. ‘I told Bernadette about the ghost-girl today and was shocked when she told me she had seen her too over the years. She told me the girl’s name was Kathleen and she haunted the monastery because she died there, and she told me her sister disappeared from there and was never found. She looks for her sister, Maeve, still. I asked Bernadette more about it but she didn’t want to tell me more and refused to discuss it further. I have decided to sneak into the archives and see what I can find myself. Maybe it is what the ghost, the girl, wants me to do.

  December 12th. ‘I have stopped taking my medicine so I can think. I can’t sleep much but it’s all right since I use the night to do my research. I spent hours in the archives last night and now I have the story of the girl and her sister. They were Kathleen and Maeve Murphy. I am no longer afraid; I have Kathleen beside me. I know what she wants me to do now.

  December 15th. ‘I have a bad feeling about something. I am almost afraid to write it down but I have to get it out of my head. I think the priest or his assistant, or maybe both who were here when Maeve Murphy went missing, were abusing the girls. I think they had something to do with Maeve’s disappearance. I found out what Kathleen is saying to me. She is asking about her sister…’where is my sister, or have you seen my sister’…it is old Gaelic but I think I have it right, and it makes sense. Something bad happened to her big sister Maeve right here in this place and no one seemed to care. No one cared but Kathleen, and now there is only me, and I care. I worry Bernadette will slip up and tell Jacob I have seen the ghost-child, Kathleen. Jacob has no patience with the mystical and barely anything spiritual. He will put me back in hospital for sure. I need to remind her to keep her mouth shut about this.

  December 17th. ‘Jacob came by for dinner tonight like he does most nights but he was different tonight. He was detached and distracted, and I am sure he was glad I was here and not at home with my gloomy face everywhere he looked. He was different because I think he has written me off. He will be happier now because I am not there to remind him every day he has a crazy wife. No matter what happens with me I think our marriage is over. I am not the same person he loved and married. I can’t help it, but neither can he. I can forgive him. Something odd happened tonight. I went down to the archive rooms later than normal because I couldn’t sleep and I wanted to see if I could find any notes the Sisters kept about their efforts to report the priest or get rid of him. I found a few things, but the really important thing is that I found a note from the prioress to the assistant prioress telling her Maeve Murphy kept a journal and it had not been found. There was to be a monastery-wide search for it because the local constable in charge of Maeve’s disappearance asked if she kept one. Maybe she told her mother she was keeping a journal and her mother told the constable. I am not sure how they knew she kept a journal otherwise. I can’t imagine why the prioress kept records of any of this, or who decided to hide them away. Maybe they saw Maeve writing in a journal or Kathleen had told them. I also found out Kathleen died not long after Maeve disappeared, apparently of Pneumonia. Tonight was a huge night for me. I am happy because I am useful again. But the something odd… I was coming back from the archives when I felt a cold gust of air, and it traveled directly up my back like an icy finger. I turned around fast but saw nothing or no one and I could not find the source of the cold air. Then I felt afraid, as if something or someone was following me. I ran to my room and locked the door, and here I sit now unable to sleep but excited because I was so successful in my research.

  The ringing phone brought Jacob’s reading to a halt and it took him a few seconds to shake off what he was reading and find his mobile phone. Tommy had a few questions about a display at the store, and as Jacob ended the call he looked at his watch. He spent more time reading than he thought. Now there was just enough time to take a quick shower and get to the center to meet with his aunt.

  Jacob wished the water in the shower could wash away everything in Lydia’s journals, all her pain, and his, and everything he was thinking. He knew if any of it were true it meant all kinds of trouble. And it meant Lydia killed herself thinking she was insane when she was not. He refused to think about the fallout right now. His goal was to get through this meeting with his aunt and see if he could get her to talk a little more about this ghost-child. He knew Bernie would not say much around the rest of them. His next thought was about contacting a private detective he knew in Dublin to see if he could get some help digging into the history of the monastery when it was a school. There must be some kind of public records of any deaths there, if they kept them that far back. He decided to keep Lydia’s journals to himself for now. He had one last one to read, but he couldn’t take any more tonight.

  When Jacob pulled into the circular drive in front of the retreat center, his aunt was standing outside waiting for him. This was out of the ordinary for her and put him on guard. He had walked two steps from the car, and there she was, clutching his arm and trying to drag him away from the main entrance.

  “Aunt Bernie, what is wrong with you?”

  “Jacob, come on, don’t be difficult. I have something important to tell you.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Just over here into the garden; hurry now, Jacob.”

  “Aunt Bernie, for goodness sakes, please slow down or you will fall down.”

  “Here, sit.” She indicated a bench on the path to the Sisters’ cemetery.

  Jacob sat down and held up his hands in surrender. “Tell me what you are bursting to tell me then.”

  “I’ve only got a few minutes before they miss me and the dinner bells ring so just let me say this and don’t interrupt. There is a ghost here at the center. It, she, has been here a long time. There was a murder here, and it is all going to come out. Lydia found out about it. I knew some of the story already and she told me the rest. She was right, I have checked it myself. Now the American woman is snooping around and it will all come out. We will be on television, in the newspapers, it will destroy us, the Center, and hurt the church. You have to stop her, Jacob.”

  “A murder, who was murdered?”

  His aunt began to speak in a harsh whisper, a hurried rush of words. “Kathleen’s sister, Maeve, of course. She was killed by the priest’s assistant who was here when the school was here. He was an evil man. He abused the girls and he killed Maeve. If the priest wasn’t part of it, the actual abuse, he knew about it. He had to know and was part of it or covered it up. I don’t know if the murder of Maeve was an accident or not, but I’ll wager the girl is buried here on the grounds. She disappeared one day and was never heard from again. Kathleen, the ghost-child, is her baby sister who looks for her to this day. Kathleen won’t stop until there is justice for Maeve.”

  “Not you too, for the love of…”

  Jacob was interrupted by the ringing of the bells calling them in for the evening meal. Like a robot, Bernadette stood, turned, and walked back to the building leaving Jacob sitting on the bench with his mouth open.

  Jacob ran to catch up with his aunt while his mind raced to process all he had heard and how it fit with what Cassie told him. What he had read in Lydia’s journal underscored it all. There was something to the story, for sure. He felt the beginning of a headache. Those bells were not helping either.

  Jacob was absorbed in his own thoughts, and almost ran into Cassie as he turned the corner to go into the dining room. He stepped back as if he were burned. Cassie looked at him with a question in her eyes, but he didn’t know what to say to her. She smiled and turne
d her back on him, and went on her way to the buffet with her ever constant companion, April, at her side. This had turned into one terrible week, and tonight was the icing on the cake.

  Jacob went to the coffee and tea station to help his aunt. They made their way to the back table. He could tell his aunt wanted to get as far away from Cassie as she could. Cassie and April were on the other side of the room near the entrance with their heads together in whispered conversation. He turned his chair so they were not in his line of vision.

  Bernadette held up her right hand. “Before you say anything, Jacob, let me say one more thing and then you can do with this information as you will, and we won’t speak of it again. There is proof somewhere here at the Center in those old archives they are paying Cassie to organize for the church. They will be turned over to the church soon and away from the public forever. Maeve kept a journal, and I believe some of the Sisters in charge looked for it but never found it. I do think they found out other things on their own and hushed it up to keep the church’s name out of the press. Now the retreat owners dare not rock the boat with anything having to do with the church. As you are aware, they are in heavy negotiations with the church for this land around the Center. They will do anything to please the church officials and to seal this deal. That is all I can and will say. The rest is up to you. I know you are or were a potential investor in their big plans. So you will need to make your own decision.”

  “Aunt Bernie, you can’t just drop all this…this fantastical story in my lap and make me responsible for the outcome if this story gets out. It has nothing to do with me.”

  “Now Jacob, you know that is not true.”

  “I need to go home, aunt Bernie. Enough drama for one day for me. I’ll call you in a few days. I need time to think.”

  “I understand Jacob; but know this, one of us must find the dead girl’s journal before Cassie does. If she finds it, writes a book about it all…well, you can fill in the blanks.”

  Jacob kissed her on the cheek and left the dining room without looking at anyone, especially Cassie.

  He was almost home when the urge to turn back and talk to Cassie hit him hard. It was almost as if she were calling to him. Angry with himself and everyone else, he took the next side road, turned around and drove back to the Center. There was no plan at all about what to do once he was back there.

  Jacob pulled into his usual spot in the circular drive close to the main doors. He got out of the car and stood, hands in pocket, looking out at the landscape trying to control his thoughts and make some sense of everything. It was getting dark, and a few of the outdoor lights came on near the entrance doors. He made up his mind, and walked around to the side wing where Cassie’s room was located. He hoped the outside door was unlocked and he might get upstairs without a fuss, or worse case, he could throw rocks at her balcony. The idea made him smile.

  It was much darker now as Jacob walked away from the lights near the front door. There were only a couple of outdoor lights on the old wing side. He turned the corner and stopped because he heard voices but he couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. He inched along the wall of the wing for a few more feet and stopped again. There, he heard it again. It sounded like a child singing. Then with a low moan, the outside door swung open. He stopped and pushed himself back against the wall. It was Cassie, April, and some mongrel dog. He watched as they walked the path toward the Sisters’ cemetery. After they got to the bend in the path, they both switched on flashlights. He decided to follow along.

  Jacob was prepared for Cassie’s anger when she realized he was there. He decided upon a good apology and his excuse for following them into the cemetery, but he was not ready for what he saw next. There they were…the three of them. At first he wasn’t sure what he was seeing because it looked as if several pale statues stood before him. Cassie and April stood statue-still. But what took his breath away was the ghost-child standing between them, her face turned up toward the statue of the Virgin Mary. The child wept and it was a sound to break your heart. It was the sound of a million tears falling through time; it was the sound of grief that had no end.

  Suddenly, all three of them turned toward him, and the girl reached out her hands to him and spoke to him in Gaelic, a language he had not heard since high school.

  ‘Is e mo dheirfiur imithe’ she said again and again; and he didn’t know how, but he understood her. She asked him, “Have you seen my sister?”

  Jacob could not take his eyes off the girl. She held both arms out toward him and her eyes were shining like beacons, pulling him toward her. He stumbled forward a few feet and watched as the girl rose up off the ground. She repeated her request. Jacob swallowed hard, his mouth and throat like sandpaper. “Who are you, child?”

  “Cabhru liom teach tar mo dheirfiur.”

  Jacob forced himself to back away from her, and he looked at Cassie who was as pale as the ghost-child, as she stood in the reflection of the moon hanging bright and heavy over her head. “Cassie…”

  The girl vanished but the sound of her brokenhearted crying hung in the air for minutes it seemed as they all stood openmouthed. The crying faded into the night and April took Cassie’s hand and they walked toward him. He didn’t know what to do or what to think. His thoughts were a painful jumble and his head pounded. He thought he might be sick.

  “Cassie, I…I have to go.”

  “Wait, how can you leave now after that? What did she say, Jacob?”

  “She asked me to help her. She asked me to help find her sister.”

  Jacob left them standing in the cemetery and without a backward glance walked back to his car. He sat for a full minute before the nausea passed, and his hands stopped shaking enough to get the key into the ignition. He pulled into his driveway some time later, and realized as he locked the car, he had no memory of the drive home. There was only one thing to do now. He must read the rest of Lydia’s journal. But first, a shot of whiskey, or two, was in order.

  Chapter 11

  Cassie and April watched Jacob go. April turned to Cassie and opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Cassie put her arm around April’s shoulders.

  April brushed away the tears on her face with the back of her hand. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”

  “You can say that again. I guess Jacob can’t deny Kathleen any longer since she spoke directly to him. No wonder he rushed out of here.”

  “Where is Shamus?” April turned around in a circle.

  “There he is on Sister Mary Lambert’s grave again.”

  “Wish you could talk, Shamus.” April attached the dog lead to his collar.

  Shamus looked up at her and whined as if to say he was trying to talk to them.

  “We better get out of here, April. Let’s go back and turn on the recorder and walk around and see what we pick up tonight.”

  “We best wait for a little while to make sure no staff or workers are roaming about. There are a few staff who do still come to the library and archives now and then. The library section is very good, better than the library in the new wing. Never know who will show up there.”

  “Oh, I guess you’re right. It might be hard to explain what we were doing walking around with recorders. Not to change the subject, but I wonder what Jacob is thinking?”

  “I’ll bet he is feeling terrible about not believing his wife.”

  “Oh April, you’re right. I feel bad about being so hard on him before.”

  “It’s not your fault, Cassie. You told the truth is all. It was up to him to believe it or not.”

  “Still, I hate to see him in pain.”

  “Ah, you like him then… I mean you more than like him.”

  “Oh wow, are you kidding me? More than liking him, as you put it, is the worst thing I could do. We are worse than Romeo and Juliet. We are doomed to fail. No relationship could survive all we have going against us.”

  “Love conquers all, Cassie, or don’t you believe that?”

  “No, I don�
�t believe it, and I’m not even sure I want a relationship. I just got out of one, remember?”

  “I know, but…”

  “Give it up, April, Miss Romantic. Change of subject.”

  They reached the building and climbed the stairs to Cassie’s room, both glancing at the shadows in the gloomy hall.

  Cassie unlocked her door, and April and Shamus followed her inside. “I’ll get the professor’s case and we will see if we can operate this equipment while we are waiting out the roving staff and workers.”

  They put the case on Cassie’s bed, and were happy to see it was a simple machine to operate, as the professor promised. There was an off and on switch, a volume control, and record and pause buttons.

  “Where do we start, across in Lydia’s room?”

  “Oh Cassie, I’m not sure we should.”

  Cassie played around with the volume control button on the recorder. “I have no idea what level of volume we need. Let’s test it.”

  “Okay, ready set, turn it up on high and see if it picks me up from the hall.” April stepped out into the hall and recited a poem while Cassie recorded.”

  “All right April, I got you, but what does that tell us? Who knows what sound vibrations this thing is set for. By the way, I rather go to Lydia’s room than the old priest’s quarters.”

  “I suppose you are right. Let’s not go there without the professor.”

  “You read my mind. Let’s just go across and open the door and take a quick reading to see if we get anything at all. We’ll just keep it set on high. “

  Cassie could see April was nervous because she was chewing on her bottom lip again. It was another thing she had learned about her in their time together, she had a nervous habit.

  “No need to worry, April. We’ll be quick, in and out, and you can stand in the hall.”

  April gave her a nod. “I’ll take Shamus down to my room first.”

  “I think he will be comfortable here. He looks calm to me.”