Outskirts Press, INC.

She Sees Ghosts

A blazing fire killed her family and devoured her home. A vengeful demon haunted her. Ghosts of the Revolutionary War needed help that only she could provide. A young woman languished, desperate to survive, and teetered on the edge of sanity.

Mehitable grew up in a freshly tamed town, carved from the primeval forest. Family, friends, and working at the mercantile filled her days and warmed her heart. For Mehitable, life was simple and safe, until tragedy struck. When her family perished in their burning home, she retreated into a world of her own making. As a young girl, she had seen glimmers, glimpses, and flickers of the spirit world. She closed her eyes. She turned her back. She ignored the apparitions that she never spoke of, desperately hoping they would leave her in peace. She was mistaken.

Grief-stricken, Mehitable withdrew from the human world. Ghosts were everywhere. They became bolder. She could no longer turn her back on the spirit world. Her friends feared for her survival. Nobody understood her. She would have to find her own way.

Fans of TV’s Ghost Whisperer and Long Island Medium will especially love She Sees Ghosts. This historical novel features memorable characters and delivers bone-tingling, spine chilling goosebumps. It stands on its own and it is the next installment in the Adirondack Spirit Series by the award-winning author of Wanders Far―An Unlikely Hero’s Journey. David Fitz-Gerald delivers a historical novel with a bittersweet ending that you won’t see coming.

Would she save the spirits’ souls, or would they save her? Only time would tell.

Mehitable did her best to settle into a daily routine. Evenings were another story.

The Lewis barn was well built. It was relatively warm, even on the coldest winter days. Mehitable wondered what the sheep thought, having a person sleeping among them. Unflappable Emmeline seemed impervious. Mehitable thought that the sheep understood their roles as her confidants. Of course, Emmeline’s sisters Augusta and Adelina were equally good listeners. She had named the sheep after three friends from a book she read at the library called Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle. The book didn’t have much good to say about marriage, but Mehitable liked the characters in the book anyhow, and she especially liked the sound of their names.

Mehitable was exhausted and was looking forward to a full night of sleep the first night she spent in the Lewis’s barn. She nestled between the three plush ewes in their big box stall and she was plenty warm. She sighed contentedly, closed her eyes, then she felt a prickly feeling on her skin. Her eyes snapped open and her body tensed. She clenched her hands into fists and peered into the darkness. She heard a distant, moaning sound. Then she heard the chatter of people talking in words that didn’t sound like any kind of language she was familiar with. That was followed by the sound of metal being slowly dragged across stone. Shovels, rakes, and hoes began to bang and clamor against the interior wooden walls of the barn. She recoiled and she placed her hand on her belly. She sweated nervously, fearing what might come next. Then everything went silent. The air felt thick. Electric. A tiny light zoomed across a long stretch of spiderweb then illuminated from the center of a web at the corner of the box stall. Just as Anson’s ghost appeared in her yard the day before, he appeared outward from the tiny point of light.

Accusingly, the ghost screamed, “You thought I wouldn’t find you here? It doesn’t matter where you go. I’ll follow. I’ll hunt you down. You’ll wish you had married me.” The ghost tipped his head back and laughed. The laughter sounded like a cross between a growling bear and a screeching owl. Then she felt a breeze across her thighs beneath her nightgown. A moment later she felt like a cat had scratched the skin on her thighs. She screamed in dismay. Then suddenly, it was over. The ghost was gone.

Mehitable pulled her nightgown up to her waist and felt the scratches on her legs. How is it possible? How could my legs be scratched through my nightgown? Then she wondered if the ghost would return, or whether it was done for the night. The air no longer felt heavy. She fidgeted between the sheep. Exhausted as she was, the trauma of Anson’s visit kept her from sleep for an hour and a half.

The next night, Anson’s arrival was heralded with pulses of light throughout the barn and the sound of something being dragged across the floor. It sounded like a large sack of grain being dragged down a hallway. Or a dead body. Mehitable felt dizzy and her head ached. She clenched her teeth, and protectively covered her thighs with her hands to avoid getting scratched again. Instead she felt something at her ear. It felt like someone had flicked her earlobe. Reflexively, she boxed her ears and in that moment, Anson appeared, laughing.

“Did you miss me?” he said through sneering lips. Mehitable smelled the familiar scent of whiskey, dried sweat, and unwashed clothing. In the distance, she thought she heard the sound of dripping water, like the sound a leaky roof makes as water falls from the roof to the floor into a metal bucket.

Anson told Mehitable she was worthless. The barn was too good for her. She should go out and sleep in a snowbank under a tree. Mehitable’s tense, frozen body could do no more than shake her head in refusal. Anson suggested she cut her wrists and watch her blood flow onto the floor as he cackled in amusement at his suggestion. Finally, Anson offered her a week’s worth of peaceful sleep if she would hack off her ear. Mehitable boxed her ears a second time and shivered in fear. Moments later, Anson was suddenly gone.

When she had recovered her wits, it occurred to her that each visit was uniquely wicked, however they all seemed to last about the same duration. As if Anson had enough power or energy to torment her for only so long.

Every night she hoped that the spirit world would leave her alone. Every night Anson’s ghost appeared when she closed her eyes, attempting to find sleep. More than once, she thought, If only I had agreed to let Anson kiss me. If I had accepted his marriage offer, maybe my family would still be alive. Despite feeling guilty about the death of her family, Mehitable never could rationalize the idea that having married Anson was truly God’s plan. Nevertheless, like a recurring nightmare, most of Anson’s spirit visits repeated, with variations. There was always a taunt. There was always finger wagging. There was always a threat. She didn’t know whether a spirit had the power to follow through on the type of threats Anson’s ghost made. The spirit made a succession of horrible suggestions. Suggestions such as: chop off your hair, slit your wrists, hack off your ear, bludgeon that baby with a carving knife. After several weeks, Mehitable concluded Anson’s ghost wanted to display anger, to terrorize her. Its fury never seemed to diminish.

Whenever she thought about it, she clenched her hands into fists, her fingernails digging painfully into the palms of her hands. She knew she needed to accept the nightly visit as part of her life, but she never got used to the feeling of dread that preceded trying to close her eyes each night, and it always took hours to fall asleep after a haunting. Some nights, Anson’s ghost would appear more than once. And Anson’s spirit wasn’t her only visitor. She continued to see ghosts of the baby boys killed by King Herod’s murderous men, 1800 years earlier. Sometimes she would see the ghosts of her family, but they never spoke to her. They were a far more welcome vision than the others. Some nights, she felt like she got hardly any sleep. Since the tragedy, it felt like a massive chore just dragging her body to a standing position each day.