Spirit Story Chapter 9
Chapter 9
The object had not moved. Mara stood in the guest-room doorway at 6:08 the next morning and experienced a degree of satisfaction entirely disproportionate to the accomplishment. The silver case lay precisely inside the pencil outline, not approximately. Precisely.
She crouched. The paper was undisturbed. The object had not rotated. The clasp still pointed toward the right edge of the desk. The hinge aligned with the small pencil mark she’d added after taking the photograph. Mara compared it with the image on her phone.
Identical. “Good.”
Newton meowed from the hallway. Mara looked over her shoulder. “You’re still excluded.” He sat outside the doorway.
“Protocol.” Newton began washing his chest.
Mara photographed the object. 6:09 a.m. — No observed change. She added the note beneath the previous night’s entry. Then she stood. The silver object had not moved because objects did not move themselves. She went to make coffee.
⸻
At work, Daniel looked at her before she had fully put down her bag. “Well?”
Mara stopped. “Well what?”
“Your experiment.”
She stared at him. “How do you know about my experiment?”
“I didn’t.”
His grin appeared.
“You do now.”
“Correct.”
Mara sat down.
“What are you testing?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re conducting an experiment on nothing?”
“Yes.”
“Control group?”
“You.”
“Excellent choice.”
Mara logged in.
Daniel rolled his chair closer. “Is this ghost-related?”
“No.”
“Guide-related?”
“No.”
“Forty-one?”
“No.”
“Claire?”
“No.”
“The cat?”
Mara hesitated.
Daniel pointed at her. “The cat is involved.”
“Go to work.”
“I am at work.”
“Then demonstrate it.”
Daniel rolled away, pleased with himself. Mara opened the morning runs. She did not think about the silver object again until lunch, that was when her mother called.
Mara looked at the screen and considered ignoring it.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Aunt Carol doesn’t think it was Ruth’s.”
Mara closed her eyes. No hello. No transition.
“Good afternoon to you too.”
“I told you I’d ask.”
“You told me you’d sent the photograph to Carol. I don’t remember authorizing a family investigation.”
“Carol likes this sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Old things.”
“That is impressively broad.”
Her mother ignored her. “She says she doesn’t remember anything like it in Ruth’s things.”
“Does she remember Ruth’s things?”
“Some of them.”
“How?”
“She helped clean out the house.”
Mara sat straighter. “When?”
“Oh, Lord.”
“Approximately.”
“Mara, I don’t know. I was young.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down.”
“Watch yourself.”
Mara smiled, “Was this before I was born?”
“Yes.”
“Before you married Dad?”
“I think so.”
“Then we’re talking at least—”
“Do not calculate my age.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were about to.”
Mara picked up a pen. “So Carol helped clear Great-Grandmother Ruth’s house.”
“Yes.”
“And she doesn’t remember the silver case.”
“No.”
“Which doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”
“I told her that.”
Mara paused. “You did?”
“I can be scientific.”
“You can be argumentative.”
“Same thing.”
Mara laughed. “What does she remember?”
“She thinks there was something like it in somebody else’s things.”
Mara’s pen stopped. “Whose?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Mom.”
“What?”
“That’s the important part.”
“I know that.”
“Then why did you lead with Ruth?”
“Because you asked about Ruth yesterday.”
Mara put down the pen. “All right. What exactly did Carol say?”
“That she remembers a little silver case. Or maybe a little silver box. She thinks it came from somebody’s estate.”
“Whose estate?”
“She doesn’t remember.”
“Which side of the family?”
“Not sure.”
“Maternal?”
“I said she’s not sure.”
“Paternal?”
“Mara.”
“Fine.”
Her mother continued. “She said families used to pass things around. Somebody died, things went to sisters and daughters and cousins. Then somebody else died and the same things got divided again.”
Mara leaned back. That was reasonable and inconvenient. “So we have no provenance.”
“We have family.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It is in Louisiana.”
Mara laughed despite herself.
“Carol said she’d look through some old photographs.”
“Why?”
“To see if anybody was wearing one.”
Mara’s smile disappeared. “Mom.”
“What?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Build a story around the object before we know what it is.”
“We’re not building a story.”
“You’re looking for photographs of women wearing silver things because we found a silver thing.”
“Yes.”
“That is exactly how you create false associations.”
There was a pause. “You’re no fun.”
“I’ve recently received independent confirmation of that.”
“From who?”
“Claire.”
“Oh! How is Claire?”
Mara regretted mentioning her immediately.
“She’s fine.”
“I always liked her.”
“You encouraged us to climb onto the school roof.”
“I did not.”
“You told her where the maintenance ladder was.”
“I didn’t think you’d actually use it.”
“You knew Claire.”
“That’s fair.”
Mara looked toward the laboratory.
“I need to go.”
“I’ll tell Carol not to make anything up.”
“Thank you.”
“But she can still look at pictures.”
“Mom.”
“Pictures aren’t dangerous.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Mara ended the call.
Daniel looked over. “Family?”
“How could you tell?”
“You said ‘provenance’ in a tone usually reserved for murder.”
⸻
That evening, the silver object had not moved. Mara checked at 5:51.
Photograph.
Comparison.
No change.
At 10:04, she checked again.
No change.
The next morning:
No change.
That evening:
No change.
By the third morning, Mara felt ridiculous. She stood over the guest-room desk in her robe, looking at a small silver case that had accomplished absolutely nothing for nearly thirty-six hours.
“Congratulations.” Newton sat behind her. “You’re an object.” The object declined to respond. Mara photographed it one final time.
No anomalous movement observed during controlled period.
She considered the wording and changed controlled period to:
observation period.
Her home was not a controlled environment. She had controlled access to the room as much as reasonably possible, but temperature, vibration, structural movement and other variables remained unmeasured.
She added:
Guest-room door remained closed except during documented observations. Cat excluded.
Newton meowed. “You’re in the report.” He walked away. Mara smiled. Experiment concluded. She picked up the silver case and removed the paper. The junk-drawer incident had been exactly what she suspected. She had moved the object. Forgotten doing so. Then attached significance to the lapse because Evelyn had primed her to see significance.
Human memory was imperfect. That was all. Mara carried the case into the living room and placed it on the bookshelf.
She felt considerably better.
⸻
Claire lasted seventy-two hours. Mara considered that impressive. Her phone rang while she was making dinner. She answered without looking.
“Hello?”
“I followed your rules.”
Mara closed the refrigerator.
“Claire.”
“I did.”
“Why does this sound like a confession?”
“Because you’re judgmental.”
“What did you do?”
“I did not research the woman.”
Mara leaned against the counter. “Go on.”
“I did not research the man.”
“Claire.”
“I did not research forty-one.”
“I’m waiting.”
“I researched vinaigrettes.”
Mara closed her eyes. “No.”
“You specifically told me not to research the woman, the man, or forty-one.”
“You knew what I meant.”
“I respected the exact parameters provided.”
“You’re weaponizing specificity.”
“I learned from you.”
Mara heard the smile in her voice. “What did you find?”
“A lot of tiny silver boxes.”
“Wonderful.”
“Some are gorgeous.”
“Claire.”
“And yours might not be one.”
Mara paused. “What?”
“I said it might not be a vinaigrette.”
“I heard you. Why?”
“Because there were tons of little cases women carried or wore. Vinaigrettes, scent cases, little containers, watch things, sewing things—”
“Chatelaines.”
“Yes! Those.”
“A chatelaine isn’t a case.”
“I know that now.”
Mara smiled despite herself.
Claire continued. “And some of the cases had loops so they could hang from chains, but some were carried in pockets or purses, and some things that look almost identical had completely different purposes.”
“Which means appearance alone is insufficient for identification.”
“Sure.”
“That’s the useful part.”
“I sent you seventeen pictures.”
“Claire.”
“Educational materials.”
“My phone has not made a sound.”
“I haven’t pressed send yet.”
“Don’t.”
A pause.
“Six?”
“No.”
“Three.”
“No.”
“One extremely tasteful example?”
Mara laughed.
“Send one.”
“I knew you’d come around.”
“This is not coming around.”
“Check your phone.”
The photograph arrived. Mara opened it. A small silver case hung from a chain attached to a woman’s waist. The image was from a museum collection. Mara enlarged it. The object was oval rather than rectangular. More ornate. Clearly not hers. Good. She zoomed out.
The woman’s dress was high at the neck. Mara stopped. Period clothing.
“Mara?”
“I’m here.”
“See?”
“Yes.”
“Kind of cool, right?”
“Yes.”
Claire went quiet.
Mara knew immediately.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was my word first. You can’t use it.”
Claire hesitated.
“Mara, Evelyn called me.”
Mara straightened. “When?”
“This afternoon.”
“Why?”
“She had my number from the appointment.”
“What did she want?”
“She asked if I’d talked to you.”
“About what?”
“She said she kept thinking about the reading.”
Mara set down the spoon in her hand.
“Claire.”
“I didn’t tell her anything.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she kept seeing the woman.”
Mara said nothing.
“She wanted me to tell you something.”
“Why didn’t she call me?”
“You didn’t give her your number.”
That was true.
“What?”
Claire’s voice lost some of its playfulness.
“She said the woman keeps showing her hands.”
Mara looked toward the living room. The silver case sat on the bookshelf.
“What about them?”
“She’s digging.”
Mara’s fingers tightened around the phone. “Digging what?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Where?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“With a tool?”
“I asked. Evelyn said she couldn’t tell.”
“Did she say garden?”
“No.”
“Plants?”
“No.”
“Grave?”
“No.”
Claire paused.
“She specifically said she doesn’t know what the woman is digging.”
Mara stared at the wall.
Dirt beneath her fingernails.
“No.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Mara—”
“What exactly did you tell Evelyn?”
“Nothing.”
“Before today.”
“About what?”
“The object.”
“I didn’t tell her about it.”
“Did you tell her my mother had family boxes?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her we were researching historical objects?”
“No.”
“I told you about the silver case.”
“Yes.”
“Did you mention it to anyone?”
“No.”
“Post anything?”
“No.”
“Search for it?”
“Yes.”
Mara’s attention sharpened. “Where?”
“Online.”
“On your phone?”
“Yes.”
“Were you logged into anything?”
“Mara.”
“Facebook? Google account? Anything connected to your name?”
“Probably.”
“Did you search Evelyn’s business?”
“Yesterday.”
“From the same device?”
Claire was silent.
Mara walked into the living room. “There.”
“There what?”
“Information pathway.”
“What information pathway?”
“You searched her business and the object from the same device.”
“So?”
“So there are possible mechanisms.”
“For Evelyn to know what I Googled?”
“I didn’t say likely mechanisms.”
“You’re suggesting my palm reader hacked my search history?”
“No. I’m establishing that the information environment isn’t clean.”
Claire groaned. “Normal people don’t say that.”
“Normal people are terrible at controlling variables.”
“Mara.”
“What?”
“I did not tell Evelyn about your silver thing.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why can’t you just admit this is weird?”
Mara looked at the case. “Because weird isn’t an explanation.”
Claire was quiet.
Then she said, “Evelyn said something else.”
Mara waited.
“She said she doesn’t think the woman is showing her how she lived.”
A small tension gathered in Mara’s shoulders.
“What does that mean?”
“She said—hang on. I wrote it down because I knew you’d ask exactly what she said.”
Mara almost smiled.
“Good.”
Paper rustled.
Then Claire read:
“‘I don’t think she’s showing me how she lived. I think she’s showing me something she did once.’”
Mara stared at the silver object.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Did Evelyn say why?”
“No.”
“Did she say when?”
“No.”
“What she’s trying to find?”
“No.”
“Whether she’s burying something rather than digging it up?”
A pause.
“I didn’t ask that.”
“Then ‘digging’ is an interpretation.”
“Okay.”
“It matters.”
“I know.”
Mara realized Claire meant it.
“Thank you for writing down the exact words.”
“See? I can do science.”
“No.”
“Rude.”
Mara smiled.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“You’re not freaked out?”
“No.”
“Not even a little?”
“No.”
“You’re staring at the silver thing right now, aren’t you?”
Mara looked away from it.
“Goodnight, Claire.”
“Mara—”
She hung up.
⸻
For the next hour, Mara did not touch the case.
She made dinner.
Ate.
Washed her plate.
Fed Newton.
She watched half an episode of something she had already seen and retained none of it. At 8:12, she finally stood. “This is stupid.”
Newton remained asleep. Mara went to the bookshelf. She picked up the silver case. Nothing about it had changed. She carried it to the kitchen table and turned on the overhead light. The clasp still wouldn’t open. The hinge remained dark with tarnish. She retrieved the magnifying glass and looked at the floral pattern, the stamped mark, the clasp, then the hinge. Mara frowned. There was something in it, a dark speck lodged where the two pieces of metal met. She tilted the case, more became visible.
Mara put it down. She found a sheet of white paper. Her first impulse was to scrape the material out. Bad procedure. She photographed it in place first. Wide shot. Closer. Hinge. Timestamp. Then she took a clean wooden toothpick from the kitchen drawer and gently touched the edge of the material.
A few tiny particles fell onto the paper. Mara stared at them. Dark brown. Almost black in places. Irregular. She touched nothing else.
Newton jumped onto the chair opposite her. “Don’t.”
He stared at the paper. “Absolutely not.”
Mara moved it farther away. She looked through the magnifying glass. The material could be anything.
Corrosion product.
Dust.
Old organic debris.
Dirt.
Mara’s stomach tightened.
No.
Not dirt.
Unknown particulate material.
That was what it was.
She took another photograph, then another. She folded the paper carefully around the particles.
On the outside she wrote:
Material removed from hinge. 8:19 p.m.
She stared at the words, then added the date. Mara knew exactly how she could find out what it was. At work she had access to equipment capable of telling her more about a few particles than most people would ever want to know. She could take the folded paper with her tomorrow.
Run it.
Nobody would notice.
The thought lasted perhaps three seconds.
“No.”
Newton blinked.
“State equipment is not for personal samples.”
She looked at the folded paper. “And undocumented material does not enter the laboratory.”
Newton yawned.
“Chain of custody.” She put the paper into a clean envelope. Then she looked at the silver case again. The particles could have been inside the hinge for fifty years. They could have come from the cardboard box. The rug. The junk drawer. Her hands. Newton. There was no baseline for the hinge material.
She had photographed the object before, but not at sufficient magnification to establish whether the particles had already been present. Therefore the finding meant nothing.
Mara felt better. Almost.
She carried the case back to the guest room. The sheet of paper she’d used for the experiment was still on the desk. She picked it up. The pencil outline remained.
For a moment, she considered throwing it away, instead she looked at the outline.
Then at the silver case in her hand. The object had remained within that line for three days. No movement. No measurable anomaly. Experiment concluded.
Mara turned the case over once more. Dark residue remained deep inside the hinge.
A woman with dirt beneath her fingernails.
Digging.
Mara set the case down. “Well.” Newton appeared in the doorway. Mara looked at him. “That’s irritating.”
Newton sat. Mara folded her arms. She had an unknown object. An unknown material. An unreliable provenance. A palm reader describing information that might or might not have reached her through ordinary means. And no ethical way to use the laboratory sitting fifteen minutes from her house to answer the easiest question.
Mara stared at the envelope. She disliked that considerably more than ghosts.
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