Hologram Read online

  Then she saw the white of another flyer. Of the many words printed upon it, she had time only to focus on the largest block letters. It read:

  DE WOLF HOPPER

  A MATINEE IDOL

  And then it was gone.

  Suddenly, Meg became aware of a pressure in her right hand. Something was pulling, tugging violently at her, as if to wrench itself free.

  She realized now that it was a hand, a small—yet extremely strong—hand. She struggled to hold on to it. The hand squirmed vigorously in hers.

  It was a child’s hand.

  Fear flooded into her, as if a sluice gate had opened, filling her with one thought: she must not lose that hand! That child!

  Yet she did lose it. Despite her viselike grip, the hand slipped from hers as if it were no longer of material substance.

  Meg could not see anything, but she sensed the child moving away from her, moving out into a vast, foggy void.

  She reached out to grasp the hand, but her own came up empty. She opened her mouth to call the child. The scream was silent.

  And what name would she have called? She had no idea.

  The realization that she had lost something loved and precious came over her like the resounding lid of a stone coffin.

  Meg felt her own life being stifled, choked, ended.

  She called out some name as unfamiliar to her as the street and her clothing.

  No reply.

  She called again.

  As she inhaled breath to call yet again, she took a single step and felt herself falling, plunging into some huge expanse of space. The vertigo of a thousand childhood nightmares set her stomach roiling, rushed at her face with dry, dangerous breaths.

  Then she saw the outlines of rectangular objects flying up at her in one formation.

  Bricks?

  Yes, bricks. The bricked crossing of the street was flying up to meet her!

  Meg opened her mouth to scream.

  Suddenly, she came awake. She lay there for nearly an hour, wide awake and consumed with an enormous sense of loss, an emotion that would recur throughout the day.

  And she had the oddest feeling that she had left her body during that dream.

  In the morning Meg called Denise Clooney, a social worker and entrepreneur who supplied hospitals and agencies with social workers who served as temps, per diem, or by assignment. Denise was Meg’s new employer.

  Meg carefully recorded the names and numbers of three people—two elderly women and a handicapped man in his fifties—who were to be her first patients. All three would be released from the hospital at the end of the week. It was Meg’s responsibility to make initial homecare calls to determine the needs of each—meals, nursing, prescriptions, physical or psychological therapy.

  Cut and dried. Easy stuff for a woman of Meg’s experience. Meg called the relatives of each and set up appointments for the following week. By lunchtime her work schedule for the coming week was in place.

  She had had no breakfast but still had no appetite. Nonetheless, she could not fast in her condition and so forced down a cheese sandwich and a half bowl of tomato soup. Comfort food that brought no comfort. Her business done and lunch eaten, her thoughts returned to the dream. She could ignore it no longer. It was strange—usually she could not remember her dreams, but today she had had full recall upon awakening. Its images kept returning at unpredictable moments, too, chilling her.

  Did the dream have meaning? She could not help but think that it did. But what meaning?

  The dream, in every disturbing and haunting detail, recurred on Tuesday, again in the morning just before dawn.

  Meg awoke in a sweat.

  Why had she been dressed in heavy clothing that closed tightly at her throat and draped to her toes. What was this place of bricked street crossings and hard earth? What was the significance of this dream?

  And what was this terrible fear that came over her as she tried to hold on to the phantom child? This brooding sense of loss when the hand slipped away? What was going to happen to the nameless, faceless child who had pulled away and run from her? What terrible thing?

  Meg’s hands moved down to her slightly rounded belly as one fear transmuted into another.

  Was the dream some subconscious premonition or psychic foreknowledge? Was her child in danger? From what? Whom? Would she lose her child? Her heart pumped blood to her head at the thought. Her temples pulsed, and she felt faint.

  When the dream came for a third time, on Wednesday, it came with a difference. This time it seemed as if she not only lived the dream—the clothes of another era, the heat, a child’s hand, panic and horror—but she also simultaneously observed the dream from an objective viewpoint.

  Meg slept, yet she was aware that she was dreaming. How was this possible? As if from above, she could see herself, lying on her back in the bed, her face placid, her eyes closed. She had never heard of such a thing. But it was true and it was happening to her in the here and now. Without time to consider this further, the film-like dream took her, and she began to look for details she had been unable to notice previously.

  She noticed at once that some dark oily substance seemed to coat the hard earth of the street. The liquid had spattered her shoes, stained the hem of her long dress as if with ink. What is it? she wondered. What had been spilled?

  Then, at her feet, she saw the white flyer with its black lettering. This time, however, her own awareness that she was dreaming somehow allowed her to slow the dream’s pace, gaining the time needed to study the words again. She read:

  TOWLE OPERA HOUSE

  DE WOLF HOPPER

  A MATINEE IDOL

  THE FUNNIEST COMEDY OF THE SEASON.

  Then it was gone and the dream concluded in the same terrifying way: the hand pulling away, the dreadful realization that something precious—a child—was being ripped from her grasp forever.

  At 10:00 a.m., her half-eaten cereal in the sink, Meg dialed the number of Wenonah Smythe.

  Wenonah was a bright, mildly manic woman two years younger than Meg. They had met ten years before, when Meg had only just begun her career at Ravensfield and Wenonah was fresh out of the hospital’s nursing school. They became the closest of friends, and when Meg chose her as maid of honor, her parents hadn’t blinked an eye that she had chosen a black woman. Only Aunt Geri Louise registered real surprise, her thin-lipped mouth falling open. Wenonah still worked at Ravensfield, in ER.

  Although Wenonah lived in a roomy condo in the Pattington directly across the street from the Rockwell condo, Meg had seen much less of Wenonah after the marriage. Meg thought Kurt was the reason. Kurt was one subject about which the loquacious Wenonah seldom spoke. Why was she so cool toward him?

  Was Wenonah jealous that Meg’s relationship with Kurt was a successful one, while her own five-year affair with a French doctor had ended in disaster? Was she jealous of the new demands on Meg’s time? Was there something about Kurt that she disliked? Kurt always spoke well of Wenonah.

  After the phone rang four times, Wenonah’s machine picked up.

  Meg left a brief message asking her to call back. She hung up, hoping her voice had sounded normal.

  Meg did her best to busy herself. There was still plenty to be done, but the joy of starting a new life in what seemed a wonderful old home had been washed away, superseded by insecurity and tension.

  She dared not use the vacuum on the steps or on the upper floor, which was fully carpeted, for fear that she wouldn’t hear the phone.

  A few minutes after noon, Wenonah Smythe rang back.

  FIVE

  Meg’s heart swelled in relief when she saw Wenonah through the double set of eight-foot doors, each with four vertical panes of beveled glass. It was only 1:15. She must have dropped everything and pressed her white Datsun to the limit.

  When Meg pulled open the second heavy door, Wenonah’s eyes were wide as wheels.

  “Good Lord, Margaret Rockwell!” she exclaimed. “How did you find this house?
Mansion, I should say. The pillars are incredible. A damn mansion!”

  Meg welcomed her in with a tight smile and a hug.

  “Maybe I should’ve gone round back?”

  “Around back?”

  “Yeah!” Wenonah was in the entry hall now, eyeing the double parlor. “Your neighbors will think I’m the hired help. Is this ante-bellum, or what?”

  “Hardly.” Meg laughed. She was being cheered already. “It’s practically a baby—1910. It’s Greek Revival with a dash of Federal—or so we were told.”

  “Revival, huh? Just the same, people who owned these kinds of houses years ago owned people like me.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Wenonah!” Embarrassed, Meg laughed and shook her head. She had always been surprised by Wenonah’s humor, humor that often couched barbs of some sort. Truthful barbs.

  “Just donna go aksin’ me to fetch no mint juleps, ya hear?” Wenonah had a talent for shifting her speech from one that reflected the highest education to one that took on the voice, tone, grammar, and raised emotional level of the country or street. She knew exactly how to play the contrast. Selective coding, Meg had heard it called.

  “I’ll take care not to. Enough of that. Come on. The coffee’s ready.”

  Wenonah demanded an immediate tour.

  Meg obliged, taking her through every room, downstairs first, then upstairs. They finished in the sitting room of the master bedroom. Wenonah was appropriately impressed.

  “Let’s stay up here to chat,” Meg said. “There’s so much more light up here, and it’s so gray today. I’ll bring up the coffee.” She left Wenonah staring through the French doors that opened onto the horseshoe-shaped balcony that extended along the full front of the house, then along the sides of the structure.

  When Meg returned with the coffee, Wenonah seemed to be watching her every move, her elbows on the arms of the floral platform rocker, her hands supporting her chin.

  Meg placed the cups on a tray table, then sat in a cushioned chair across from her friend.

  “Okay, girlfriend,” Wenonah said, “out with it. What is it? Who is it? What little freckle has marred your paradise? You should be happy as clams here.”

  Meg nervously reached for her decaffeinated coffee. “Is it that obvious? Am I that transparent?”

  “Transparent? Honey, your voice on the phone was transparent! Why do you think I got here so fast?”

  “Because you drive like a Chicago cab driver? Always have.”

  “True—guilty as charged. But I drove even faster today. My old Datsun will never die.”

  Meg smiled weakly, sipped at her coffee. She had tried to be casual about inviting Wenonah to Hammond without notice. Failing that, she worried now over what to say.

  Meg brought her eyes up to Wenonah’s questioning dark eyes, suddenly completely humorless. Meg realized that even in her rare serious moments, Wenonah was a strikingly beautiful woman. Perfectly coifed short hair, rounded face, good features, and rich cocoa complexion. Just jeans and a red blouse today, but she could dress well, too.

  “I’m listening, Meg.”

  A grateful sigh went up within Meg. Wenonah knew instinctively what the moment called for. Meg sat forward in her chair and began her story, telling in detail of the face at the coach house window, the tappings, the piano music, the dreams.

  Wenonah listened attentively, her face impassive. Asking only occasionally for a clarification, she made no comments, no jokes.

  Meg finished, and her sigh was audible this time. A sigh of relief. She had been able to tell her story to someone. Wenonah might have no advice to offer her, she realized, but just the telling and Wenonah’s listening—serious listening—had buoyed her considerably.

  “Wow,” Wenonah said, with more breath than voice.

  Meg’s heart caught for a moment. “You think I’m crazy!”

  “No!” Wenonah’s denial was immediate.

  “You believe me? You don’t think I’m stressed out or something?—Crazy?”

  “No. Although we’ve both been in the medical profession too long, honey, not to come unhinged once in a while.” Wenonah reached over and took Meg’s hand. “No, I don’t think you’re crazy.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Yeah, that’s the good news.”

  “But what about the dreams in which I know I am asleep and I’m going through the motions as if I’m a third party observing me?”

  “Ah, I get those, too.”

  “You do?”

  Wenonah nodded. “Some call them lucid dreams.”

  “They have a name?”

  “Yes, and after a while the dreamer may find that she can manipulate things of her own power. The first time was when my granny died. I was just five, but it was a tragic event in my life. She was closer to me than my mother. The night before the funeral, she came and sat on the side of my bed. I saw her and I saw myself lying there asleep. She soothed me and somehow communicated with me—without words. As she was about to leave, I picked up a small figurine of a ballerina that she had loved and I gave it to her. I just plucked it out of thin air. Go figure.”

  Meg gave out with a little gasp. “The real figurine?”

  “No, of course not, but don’t you see, within the dream I could choose what I wished to do. I could cause things to appear. And these lucid dreams have happened a few other times, too, and always at critical moments in my life.”

  “But this isn’t a traumatic time for me—or it shouldn’t be. It should be a happy time. New beginnings and all that.”

  Wenonah cocked her head. “The music, the tapping—not traumatic?”

  Meg shrugged, beaten. “Touché.”

  Wenonah laughed.

  “And the bad?” Meg asked.

  “The bad?”

  “Yeah, you said the good news is that I’m not bonkers—so what’s the bad?”

  Wenonah released Meg’s hand. “Now it’s only my opinion, mind you, but I think what we’ve—no, what you’ve got here is a spirit.”

  Meg’s mouth went dry. She studied her friend. “You do?” Despite the fear that filled her heart, her mood lifted. That Wenonah believed gave her validation, and she could now admit it to herself. “Oh, Wenonah, I know I do! And I can’t tell you what it does for me to hear you say so.”

  “But it’s hardly an idyllic situation, is it?”

  “No.” Meg gasped. “God, no!”

  “I take it you didn’t return the tapping?”

  “Huh? No, I never thought to. . . . Why?”

  “Well, you know I’m a talk show junkie. I’ve seen just about all of the shows that address this sort of stuff . . . you know, the paranormal. It doesn’t make me an expert, but I know that tapping is one of the common ways ghosts attempt to establish contact.”

  “Really?”

  Wenonah nodded. “Sometimes a code is worked out and they will answer your questions.”

  “Well, I’m glad I ignored it then. I don’t have any questions I would want to ask it.”

  “Of course, you do!”

  “You mean why it’s here. I haven’t been in Hammond so long I need to resort to chatting with specters, thank you very much.”

  Wenonah let go her throaty, infectious laugh. “Hammond can’t be that bad.”

  “No, I’m joking, although Kurt was reticent about setting down roots here. But I can’t tell you how much I love this house, how I seem to fit right in—except for this . . . what? . . . phenomenon!”

  “That word fits, I guess.” Wenonah’s eyes narrowed. “Are you avoiding the other word?”

  “Ghost?”

  “Yeah, ghost.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  “How strong do you feel, Meg?”

  “Strong enough not to run away after a week. I fully intend to have my baby here!”

  “Then do it, Meg. To hell with the damn ghost! Besides, it doesn’t seem to be a malevolent one.”

  “Malevolent?”

  “Yeah, like a pol
tergeist.”

  “Wait a minute, Win, what’s the difference?”

  Wenonah furrowed her brow. “I’ve heard a hundred theories, all different. But many consider ghosts to be the spirits of dead people and that poltergeists are disturbances that draw energy from the living who are sometimes called mediums.”

  “Which is this?”

  Wenonah shrugged. “Don’t look at me, Meg. I said I ain’t no expert. But the two are not totally dissimilar to one another. They both draw energy. That’s why you got the cold sensation. They both might start small, like the tapping you heard.”

  “Or the music?” Meg swallowed hard. “Are you implying they get bolder in what they do?”

  Wenonah attempted a smile. “Perhaps.”

  “But how . . . if it keeps acting out . . . And if Kurt— ”

  “Wait a minute, girl!” Wenonah’s eyes went wide. “You mean Kurt hasn’t experienced anything?”

  Meg cast her eyes down and shook her head.

  “And you haven’t told him?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, Meg!”

  “I know, I know. It’s just that my whim got us here in the first place. And I’m not sure that he’ll believe me as readily as you have.”

  “You’re right there. He is a little light on the soul side.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Sorry, nothing offensive. Just that he deals best with things in three dimensions.”

  “Oh, I guess you’re right. I would want him to believe me, but on the other hand, if he does, I’m afraid he’ll insist on selling the house.”

  Wenonah clucked her tongue. “You’re going to have to take the chance. Meg, you’ll have to trust in him a bit, yes?”

  Meg didn’t answer.

  “Meg, you can’t carry this yourself!”

  “I know.” Meg forced a laugh. “That’s why I called you, girlfriend.”

  “Me? Good god! What can I do?”

  “I don’t know. Give me advice?”

  “Look at me, Meg.” Wenonah’s voice deepened. “Good. Okay, here it is. Tell Kurt. Everything, do you hear? That’s the first of two pieces of advice I have for you.”