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She made tea and I don’t even need to tell you it was in fine china, right? Cups so delicate I thought I’d break one just by holding it. I was reading everything, getting ready for the spiel, but she didn’t look like my usual customer. No red eyes, no trembling hands, nothing but that flat, blue stare as she watched me sip a cup of imported Assam.
Seems Mrs. Weathers had been in the house for only two months. I already knew she’d been a teacher. I’d seen the framed photo, with a younger version of her in a long skirt, adults at the front, smiling kids behind. It’s the kind of detail I notice, but I let her tell me she had retired from all that and she lived alone. She seemed reluctant to bring up the reason for my being there, so I pushed a bit, laying a hand on her arm in a brief touch as I asked. Funny how often that works. It’s like some sort of trigger.
I was busy revising my fee in my head when she finally got around to telling me about the spirit she wanted gone. I nodded when she talked about dreams of screaming, like we all had them. It was almost like she’d read Spirit World after all, like she had a copy on her dresser with a checklist for ghosts. Cold breezes in a closed room—check. Whispers in her ear—check. Nameless feelings of dread—check. I was beginning to think she lacked imagination, you know? When she said it was strongest in the basement, I stood up like I was excited and as
ked to see. I figured it would take me about an hour to tap walls down there, maybe burn a few feathers and chant my powerful old Arapahoe spirit call: “Eyelie Miggeymou, Miggeymou, Miggeymou. Eyelie Miggeymou, Plutotoo.” Or “I like Mickey Mouse and Pluto too,” if you really know your plains chant. I’d declare the place clean, washed of evil spirits, collect . . . maybe four hundred dollars on top of the expenses and go on my way. The funny thing is that I believed it would work. It’s not difficult to banish something that exists only in someone’s imagination, as long as they believe in you. I truly had no idea back then that there were any kind of spirits at all.
I’ve guessed since that the Lady wanted to leave that house. God alone knows why she took an interest in me. All she had to do was sit tight while I went through some routine, and then I’d have been gone, out of their lives forever.
It wasn’t dark down there at all. It was a nice, modern basement, all painted white, with a bit of water damage in one of the corners. I remember a faint smell of damp in the air and I thought of spores. There wasn’t much else to do, with Mrs. Weathers watching me. Apart from a jumble of old furniture, a reel of hosepipe, and a few boxes, it was just about as unhaunted a place as you can ever imagine, more like an abandoned office space than a door to the other side.
Even so, I take good green dollars as seriously as the next man. I spent the best part of an hour touching each wall, noting the new plaster, running my fingers along every crack. These things just come to me sometimes. You have to give them some kind of ritual, I’ve found. You can’t just stand in the middle and mumble.
I nearly had a heart attack when the Lady blew in my ear that first time. The basement was closed off, with just a slit of a window at ground level, too small even for neighborhood boys to get through. There was no chance of a breeze and this wasn’t some gentle breath I could tell myself I’d imagined. This was exactly like someone blowing hard into my ear and making me jump. I have to say I yelped a bit, but when I turned to Mrs. Weathers, she was way over on the other side, just smiling in that sour way she had.
“That’s the sort of thing I have to live with, Mr. Garner,” she said, all kind of triumphant. “So I’ll be pleased if you’ll cease your tomfoolery and just turn the thing out of my house. That’s if you can.”
I held back from saying she should be damned pleased if anyone wanted to blow in her ear at her age. I was that upset by what had happened.
“Six hundred, with expenses,” I said at last. Best part of a thousand dollars was more than I’d ever asked before. She curled her lip at me, so that I could see yellow teeth.
“Very well, Mr. Garner, but I want results.”
“And I’ll need some privacy. You’ll get what you want, don’t worry about it.” That was me stalling for time. It didn’t help that I felt another blow in my ear as I spoke. I rubbed it and that old bitch gave me a look like she knew exactly what was going on. Which she probably did. I watched her head back up the stairs and found myself alone in that cheery, not-at-all frightening, nicely lit basement.
“Okay,” I said. I remember my heart was tapping away and I felt more than a bit foolish. “If there’s anyone in here, if I’m not just wasting a perfectly good evening, blow in my goddamn ear again, I double dare you.”
Well, she did and I nearly peed my pants. You weren’t there, so don’t tell me it wasn’t scary. I sort of lunged in the same direction and took a couple of steps. She blew in my right ear and I lunged that way, arms flailing like I was in a swarm of hornets. It wouldn’t have looked too dignified, but there was no one watching me.
I found myself close to the far wall and whenever I turned back to the room, I felt the tickle, like she wanted me to stay where I was. I don’t know exactly when I started calling her the Lady, by the way. My first wife used to blow in my ears, and maybe it reminded me of that.
I stood there facing the paint and plaster for a time, chest heaving like I’d been running. You just can’t realize what a surprise the whole thing was. Oh, I’d been talking to the dead for years by then, nodding wisely and passing on whatever vague message of goodwill the client wanted to hear. Actually feeling one, no, interacting with one, well, it was a bit of a shaker and I don’t mean the cabinets with the tiny handles.
I did move about the room, of course. I didn’t just stand where she wanted me to. But she herded me back each time to the same spot, turning me left and right, or blowing on the back of my head to move me forward. I got kind of lost in the game for a time, and if you don’t believe me it’s only because you don’t know how exciting it all was. Over and over, I ended up back at the same piece of painted plaster, new and shining. I could feel the slight pressure on my hair pushing me on, like she wanted me to walk through the damn wall.
“Can’t do it,” I said aloud. “Can you even see there’s a wall there?” I remember thinking about secret passages, maybe an old dungeon where I’d find her bones walled up. I’ve read a bit about the subject, as you can see. I confess I started to get interested, but I had an idea Mrs. Weathers might refuse to pay if I cut a big hole in her wall, so I called her back down.
I was all business again, solemn and troubled.
“I’m feeling her most strongly in this wall,” I said, running my hands along it. “Is there anything behind it? Like another room?”
Weathers shrugged, but for the first time, she looked troubled.
“I don’t know. The previous owners might have bricked something up,” she said. I could see she’d read some of the same thrillers. She brushed at her hair then, exactly as if she’d felt a fly land on her. For the first time, I felt sorry for the old bitch.
“I’m going to need a ball-peen hammer, the biggest you have,” I said. She bit her lip in worry, but at last she nodded and went away to fetch one. I could feel the steady pressure on my head as I faced the wall, and I began to realize how damn irritating it would be to live with something like that. Not six hundred dollars irritating, not to me, but Weathers looked like she could spare it without much lost sleep.
When she came back with the hammer, I went at it like a teamster, walloping that drywall until it fell away and then really getting going on the bricks behind it. It’s funny, I would have done a lot less damage if I’d been using my eyes a bit more. It took me a while to see there were two bricks that didn’t match the rest. I’d been thinking of secret rooms, Al Capone’s treasure, who knows what else. It was only when I found plastic sheeting and raw earth behind my hole that I stood back, sweating. Damp-proofing is not that sinister, and I had a nasty feeling I had just worked myself out of a fee. I took a better look at those bricks then. With all the hammering, they were already loose enough to pull out.
I noticed that Weathers still stood on the stairs, like she was afraid to come into the room. I could feel her staring as I worked the bricks out and put them on the floor. I still don’t know what I was hoping to find, but in the end it was almost a disappointment. There wasn’t even much of a space, just about enough to get a hand in. It was the sort of secret hiding place a child might find and then forget. I used to have something similar in my mom’s house underneath the old floorboards.
In the gap, there was a lock of brown hair bound in a ring, tied with a red ribbon that looked as if some insect had been eating it. I pulled it into the light and the air changed all around me. It’s hard to describe, but it felt a little bit like a plane coming down to an airport. Your ears block and suddenly you can’t hear as well. As I stood there staring at the ring of hair, I pinched my nostrils and blew, but it didn’t make any difference. I just knew that I’d found the real thing, that the spirit was bound to the hair.
“This is a relic,” I said to Weathers, behind me. My voice sounded peculiar, still muffled like we were on the approach to O’Hare and dropping fast. I pinched my nose again, blowing hard to clear my head. It still didn’t work and I began to feel a bit choked. Well, there was a way out of that.
I reached into my pants pocket and pull
ed out my lighter. As I’m writing my own story, I guess I could tell you it was a really cool Zippo, but the truth is it was the cheapest butane lighter you can buy. I remember my hand shook as I thumbed the wheel, and as it sparked and the flame lit, the air changed again, popped almost so that it left me gasping. There was no wind, but suddenly we weren’t dropping into Chicago through a thick fog, we were just standing in a basement, staring at a cigarette lighter.
