Emily's Ghost by Antoinette Stockenberg Page B

of
her friend Cara Miles. Cara's townhouse would be grand enough to
suit him; and her Picassos -- both of them --were genuine.
    The senator's little tour
didn't last long. He came back to the tape recorder and turned it
off. Emily noticed, not for the first time, how big his hands were:
strong and well formed, with prominent veins. If it were a question
of manual combat, she had no doubt who'd prevail. But it wasn't.
The senator picked up some of her notes and glanced through them
while she kept one eye on the table lamp, watching for changes in
wattage, and one ear cocked for ghost sounds.
    "Am I missing something?"
the senator asked lightly, looking up from the yellow pad of notes.
"This is an impressive amount of information, by the way," he
added. He turned the tape recorder back on. "Have you ever been to
Newarth?"
    She shook her head. "He's
not going to show," she said, drumming her fingers nervously. "I
knew he wouldn't. I just knew it."
    "You last saw the
apparition last night?"
    She nodded. "It was
raining; I was very depressed. He came into the bedroom, I think
almost to comfort me. We ended up arguing about whether he was
coming with me on the investigation. I told him not to tag along
and he got mad." Emily slumped in her chair a little at the
recollection; her hair slid forward over one cheek.
    The senator caught the
wayward lock in a feather's touch and slid it back behind her ear.
"Emily," he said in a voice that was at once reassuring and
infinitely sympathetic, "do you know what you're
saying?"
    She felt simultaneously
patronized and electrified. It threw her off completely, so she
retreated to her usual defense, sarcasm.
    "Yeah. We argued. He
walked out. The usual thing." She closed her eyes, wanting more
than anything that he touch her hair again.
    "I mean, how incredible
all this sounds to someone?"
    He wasn't going to touch
her hair again -- for whatever reason. Stung, she pushed her chair
back and stood up. "I've told you exactly what he said. I remember
every word."
    "People do hear voices
--"
    "Stop right there! Don't
you dare call me a paranoid schizophrenic!"
    "I haven't called you
anything. But documented apparitions tend to describe vague, mostly
featureless, almost transparent forms that don't last long. Whereas
you know this man down to his brass buttons. You mimic his accent;
you claim to have seen his face flush, for God's sake. Think about
it, Emily: a flush is a rush of blood under the skin. How can a
dead man flush, Emily?"
    "I don't know and I don't
care! He flushed! Repeatedly! How can you not believe me? Look,
look here! I'll show you!" She dragged him into her bedroom and
pulled her top drawer half open. A jumble of underwear exploded
brazenly from it; she didn't care. "See this drawer? See it? That's
where I sanded the name out!" she cried. "And then I waxed
it!"
    "It looks like every other
drawer," he said cautiously.
    "Of course!" she cried,
absurdly pleased by the compliment. And then she comprehended what
she'd done. "Oh." She bit her lower lip, amazed at her stupidity in
destroying the evidence. "Well, it was there. 'Fergus O'Malley.' In
a child's scrawl."
    The senator slid the
drawer closed and said gently, "That doesn't prove it was a ghost
who scrawled the name."
    " What ? Do you think I --? What is
this? I'm the
skeptic. You're supposed to be the believer!"
    They were both hovering
over the bureau, like opposing attorneys wrangling over a piece of
evidence. She began to have a sick feeling in her stomach. If Lee
Alden, Rhodes Scholar and spirit-connoisseur, didn't believe her,
maybe she didn't have a case.
    She made a last-ditch
effort to force him to believe. "I saw him there, I tell you, in
the corner. And standing on my bed. And sitting on it. And in the
living room. And in the kitchen; he wanted a beer. My God, why
would I make him up?" she cried.
    "Stress?"
    "Stress, oh that's it!
When anything goes weird nowadays, blame stress! I haven't been
under any stress!"
    "You lost