The Ghosts Of Montgomery: Chapter One

ONE: They’ll never miss it…
All thoughts were for the recently deceased. Abigail Mary Turner had been a slip of a girl, barely 17 when the Influenza took her. Folks said they had seen it coming after she'd spent the winter up north, there was something..different about her. Coming back to the Southern heat had given her the cough, then the shivers. Spending her last week bedridden, it took her hours to die. She held on as long as she could, until she could fight no more and the light faded from her eyes.

Such pretty eyes too.

Clara LeRose looked around at the swarm of black-clad mourners. Maybe she had a sensitive disposition, perhaps the Southern weather didn't lend itself kindly to standing still and mourning. Whatever it was, Clara found funerals upsetting. This was a perfectly natural response to a sad event, but she couldn’t understand why this was so.

After some thinking, she concluded the most disagreeable thing about a funeral, the worst thing any one could ever do, was to look into the eyes of someone close to the deceased.

It felt so sad to see the world they once knew fracture into a million pieces, to spend the rest of their life searching and hoping for spiritual meaning. Even though, in the end, the reality for those who chose to accept it was to place someone in a box for all eternity, cold and alone.

Clara had seen it all over her seventy-three years on this Earth. She remembered the funeral of her husband, Seth, a long time ago. She’d loved that man dearly, as a woman is supposed to do. Yet the funeral of Matthew Quinn, her intended in the autumn years, was probably much worse as they’d had so little time together. He'd kept her company after Seth's funeral, held her hand and told her things would be alright. She'd known him from childhood, two young whippersnappers together. The man she'd always loved but never took the chance to tell him.

At both funerals nobody had dared look her in the eye, but that was probably due to fear of a curse; Clara always put the fear of God in people. If they only knew...
When they did finally get the courage to fumble some utterances, it was the same sentence over and over.
'If there is anything I can do, De’hear, let me know right away'.
'Let me know if I can be of assistance, Clara, I'll be there in a jiffy.'
In truth, there was never anything they could do short of performing a miracle. If they hadn’t lost someone, they couldn’t comprehend. If they did, they would already know the promise was meaningless.

Clara considered whether people got off lucky when they died. For those left behind, the cycle of death never ended. Her thoughts rolled over all the different events one must attend to. The first time you heard from the Doctor. When the blood rushed through your head and you couldn't breathe. Every time a birthday, a Christmas or a rite of passage...

The sun rose higher, beating down upon the dusty, scorched earth. Clara closed her eyes to try and block out the heat.

“Mama?” A voice cried out.

The Pastor began the final passage for the deceased. “In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our sister Abigail; and we commit her body to the ground; earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless her and keep her, the Lord make her face to shine upon her and be gracious unto her and give her peace. Amen.”

Clara had clearly heard a girl's voice say ‘Mama'. She opened one eye, moving it left and right in order to catch a reaction. Everyone else seemed deep in prayer. Apart from Josephine Quinn, Pastor’s daughter, she hadn't know of any other youngsters invited. Clara closed her eyes again.

“Mama? Papa? What’s happ’nin? I feel much better now.” The voice crowed once more, much nearer now.

Clara opened her eyes to see in front of her the frail form of Abigail Turner, still in her nightdress and trying to get the attention of her parents. The girl looked like she'd just woken up from a deep sleep, all bright-eyed and innocent. Clara didn't want to understand how it was possible for Abigail to be walking about, or talking. Or why no-one seemed to notice. Unfortunately for Clara, she knew all too well. Once again, Clara had been chosen as a servant of the dead, at their beck and call until they chose otherwise.

“Won’t somebody talk to me? Please? Why is you all not talkin’? Somebody help me please! I don’t understand!”

Clara shut her eyes again as Abigail pleaded, begged with everyone and anyone to tell her what was going on. She moved from mourner to mourner, no-one batting even an eyelid. Clara watched as Abigail, in desperation, tried to grab her Mother’s arm. She screamed as her hand passed right through it. Mrs Turner, who was very much alive and unaware of such things as ghosts, didn't see a thing.

Clara didn't want it to be happening again. It had been too many times for her to go through this..
Abigail stared in horror at her transparent limb, holding it with the other in an attempt to understand.
Taking several paces back she stumbled, her legs passing halfway through her own coffin.

'What's happening to me? Help me, Lord, please help me.'

Clara tried to block it out, to think of anything that would stop Abigail and make her go away. The Chief Mourners removed the blocks holding the coffin and took the strain as it began the descent. The ghost looked at the name on the lid, wondering whose funeral demanded so much attention. Her eyes widened.

Abigail Mary Turner. To God's Eternal Rest.

Being neither with God or resting, there was nothing left to do but fall to the floor and cry, begging someone-anyone-to help her. Once again Clara had been witness to a lost soul; the total sum of a spirit in pain, reaching out and looking for answers. It became one more spirit to haunt her, another step to insanity. This had been Clara's life for many years.

Before this day, Clara LeRose had dealt with each and every situation befallen to her. Death had followed her, used her as its voice. In that one moment, sixty-odd years of pressure crashed upon the waves of her sanity. She heard every voice of the damned she'd come across, seering through her brain in a jumble.

It all felt too much for her. In a symphony of white noise, she did something she had never, ever done before.

----------------------------------------------------

Sara Quinn quietly contemplated her own private thoughts. As her daughter stood beside her, quietly sobbing, she put her arm around her and held her as tight as she could.
Thank the Lord it wasn’t her.
She chided herself for her wicked thoughts and paid mind to do penance later, only a light one though. Maybe no dessert after supper, she believed the good Lord would understand her feelings at this time. Looking around, she appraised the congregation. Thomas and Louise Turner, the poor wretches. She would make sure the church raised funds for Abigail’s stone. Looking proudly at her husband Jeremiah, love of her life and possibly the finest Pastor this side of the Mississippi river, he had done the town proud with his order of service. Although perhaps next time she would sugge-
Her thoughts were interrupted by a piercing scream. Turning round, she saw Clara LeRose clutching her head and screaming.

'Please just go away! I want no part of this anymore, just go to wherever you’re supposed to go!’

Clara hobbled away from the graveside, leaving a shocked crowd to gasp and mumble. There was considerable consternation amongst the crowd; it forced Jeremiah to speak at the top of his voice in order to regain control:

‘Please…please people, let us not cause any more anguish for Thomas and Louise. We all know of Madame LeRose’s… ill temperate disposition. The Lord will judge her as he does all of us.’

As Louise Turner wept, Sara and her husband exchanged a succinct look. He said no more of it, just closed the funeral and shook hands with mourners as the crowd dispersed.

Sara knew it would be discussed tonight between the two of them, one more account of this insane women’s story. She thought back to all the crazy incidents: Christmas before last where Clara insisted that ghostly carol singers were visiting many front doors; the funeral of Chares Pendlebury where all the church candles blew out at once. In a fit of insanity she couldn’t let him rest, telling him to stop being so outrageous.
Clara hadn’t even been invited to her daughter’s christening, yet she still appeared and managed to talk to someone who wasn’t there. The town considered it all harmless, even Jeremiah. Sara Quinn considered that she'd had enough of the woman, and would do everything in her power to cleanse the town of the wickedness once and for all.

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