Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

“Don’t matter. Comin to the end of it,” the old man said. “She’s got a hex on ’er.”

“She’s got—” Mickelsson began, drawing back a little.

“Never mind who put it,” the old man said, then laughed, eyes crazily merry. “People just never do learn, do they?” He seized the doorknob, turned it, and opened the door for them. “Glad you folks come up,” he said, bobbing his head at Jessica, then at Mickelsson. “Now don’t be strangers!”

Across from the porch, the bony hounds were leaping at the fence again, snapping and barking as if in rage and despair. Powdery dust clouded at their feet, obscuring the head on the floor.

“Shet ap!” the old man yelled, and flapped his arms at them, to no avail. To Jessica he said, “Say hello to the ghosts for me, missus.”

“I will,” she said, forcing a smile. She stood looking out at the dogs.

“Don’t you folks fool with ’em,” the old woman’s voice called from somewhere nearby. “You leave them alone, the spirits’ll leave you alone!”

“We’ll be careful,” Mickelsson called. “So long!” He waved, in case the old woman was somewhere where she could see him.

“Take care, now,” the old man said, and reached as if toward a cap. “I’ll be seein ya.” He winked. “Someday ye’ll look up in the sky and there I’ll be.” He flapped his arms like a bird.

Jessica smiled. “All right,” she said.

They crossed to the Jeep, neither of them glancing at the head thrown to the dogs. When the motor caught, Mickelsson waved one last time, then backed out. At the road he stopped, shifted into low, ready to start back down the mountain, but Jessica said, “Look, Pete! Look at the snow in the woods! It’s full of paw-prints!”

He saw that it was true. “He must’ve freed them for a while,” he said. “Presumably sometime after last night’s snowfall.”

“Or sicked them on someone,” Jessica said.

“Like for instance the doc,” Mickelsson said, slowly nodding.

In his mind’s eye he saw the black dogs bounding along like deer beside the doctor’s car. He saw Pearson’s ram jerk his head up suddenly as the dogs came flying through the fenced-in yard, bellowing, and saw the ram take off, heading in blind terror for wherever the dogs were not.

“Yes,” Mickelsson said, and nodded. “That must be what happened.”

They sat side by side on the couch in his livingroom, staring into the crackling, sputtering fire in the open-doored stove, Jessica with her shoes off, one foot tucked up under her, the back of her head resting lightly on Mickelsson’s arm. Her face was solemn, like that of a child listening to the stories of a grandfather. When he moved his hand on her shoulder or arm, she did not stop him. His groin ached dully, and every now and then a light shiver passed over him. Her left arm lay along his right upper leg. He concentrated on willing her to move her hand to his crotch. No luck.

Except for the fireplace and the nightlight in the kitchen, the whole house was dark. Outside, it was snowing a little. Jessica’s sherry glass sat untouched on the glass coffeetable, Mickelsson’ abandoned martini beside it. How she’d gotten him on the subject of the ghosts Mickelsson couldn’t remember.

“So what was it like?” she asked. “He just came into the bedroom and looked at you?” Though her tone was impatient, she was serious, interested.

“As I said, I’m not really sure he was there at all. Anyway, he didn’t look at me.” Mickelsson touched his forehead with two fingers. The scent of her hair and the nearness of her mouth impaired his capacity for thought. He said carefully, “He said something to someone—not to me, I think; someone he expected would be there—and then he looked embarrassed, as if he realized he’d made a mistake, and he went out.”

“You don’t even remember what he said?”

“Something like ‘Are you there?’ or, ?ou in there?’“

“So then what? He turned around and saw you?”

He smiled at her bullying. “I don’t think he ever saw me,” he said. “I’m not at all sure I saw him either, you know. The mind’s a queer business. People see things that aren’t there all the time—crazy people, people on drugs, people who are asleep and don’t know it, people who’ve been hypnotized. … When you think about it, it’s a wonder anyone’s certain of anything.”

“Maybe so, but really,” Jessica protested, “you can tell at some level when what you’re looking at isn’t really there.”

“I couldn’t—not this time—though common sense makes me assume it wasn’t. I don’t know.” He stared hard into the fire, reliving the memory for her benefit—the bearded old man shuffling in on him, staring with near-sighted, red-webbed eyes at the hatrack across the room. “I remember wondering at the time if maybe I was dreaming,” he said. He glanced at her. “Or crazy.”

“What did you decide?”

“I couldn’t tell. I think what I pretty much decided was—” He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to make out whether or not he believed what he was about to say, not that it mattered, then finished: “It wasn’t craziness. Something real, possibly not a ghost. It could be, I think, that I was tuning in on something from the past.”

“Spooky,” Jessica said, and sat forward in order to look into his face.

“Spookier than a ghost?”

She shook her head. “It’s all pretty spooky, if you ask me.” She considered, then settled back against his arm, snuggling in. With the thumb and first finger of her right hand she caught the wing of her collar, pulling it up almost to the tip of her chin, then letting it fall back. She glanced at him. “Don’t pick,” she said, and lightly slapped at his hand. Unconsciously he’d been playing with her sleeve. Her eyebrows lowered and her expression became comically studious, eyes glittering and darkening as the firelight and shadows moved. “You could be right,” she said at last. “I read a book, the autobiography