Forever and Always Read online

  As for Linc, I was attuned to him enough now that I knew he’d set off on a long walk around the grounds. His room wasn’t in the main house. When I closed my eyes, I could lock into him and almost feel what he was feeling. This had always happened to me when I was around someone for a while. With a bit of concentration, I could almost blend into that person.

  With love, the feeling was even stronger. Like spinning a dial, I could tell where my loved ones were and what they were doing. Right now my daughter and my niece were in the sunshine and they were flying. No, swinging. Some boy was pushing them. I could feel Michael Taggert nearby. It was his son who was pushing the girls on the swings. The girls missed me, they missed all their family, but they were all right. They were getting the two k’s that I’d long ago seen were necessary for children: Kissin’ and Kookin’. Love and food.

  I “spun the dial” so to speak and tuned in to my father. At the moment he was yelling at someone who was yelling back at him. I didn’t feel any danger and didn’t think he needed my help. It was difficult for me to control things from so far away, but my connection to my father was so strong that I could do it.

  My mother seemed to be driving one—or was it two?—men insane with lust. Since she’d become a movie star I never felt her having sex anymore. As a child, I’d had to sing, dance, even stick my head underwater, in order to keep from feeling her in bed with men. By the time I’d met Adam, even if I was, technically, a virgin, I was far, far from being virginal.

  As I did every hour I was awake, I tried to find Adam and his sister. I could feel them, they were alive, but they were trapped somewhere. As I did many times a day, I sent a message to Adam telling him I loved him and was trying to find him. Under normal circumstances, he could hear my mind-words, but I didn’t think he could now. Now he was blocked from me.

  I homed in on Linc and smiled. He was running now and working hard to channel his lust somewhere else.

  Once I’d ascertained that everyone was all right, I kept wandering about the big house. I found a door that I knew concealed a staircase that went down to the basement but it was locked. I wonder if the fire marshal knows about this? I thought. Wonder if I should tell him?

  I came to a door that had beveled glass panes in it and I could see sunlight. When I turned the knob and the door opened, I was joyous.

  Looking through the trees I could see three long buildings, nearly hidden in the shadows of the trees. As I approached them I had to stop for a moment and calm myself. Slave quarters. The buildings had been slave quarters. Not much of the original buildings were left but there was enough that the ghosts of the slaves could hang on and remain. I knew that there was an old slave cemetery behind the buildings but Delphia had had many of the markers removed because she didn’t want the guests being reminded of the bad times.

  I walked toward the buildings where I knew Linc was staying but it wasn’t easy. Spirits were all around me. They knew I could sense them so they were running toward me and begging for my help. None of them were very strong, not strong enough, angry enough or full of enough hate to form themselves into bodies that could be seen.

  But I could feel them, feel their tears, feel their confusion, feel their anger—and hear their thoughts.

  “I served her for years but she threw me out,” one female spirit said. She’d been too pretty and the mistress had been worried that her new husband would like the slave better so she’d sent the girl to the fields. She’d died soon afterward and she was still angry and confused.

  There were several women crying for children who had been taken away from them and sold. There were some ghosts of men who were crying in frustration because they were helpless to protect the people they loved.

  I stopped walking and told them, “Ssssh, be still. It’s over. You’re at peace now.” They calmed somewhat but I knew it was temporary. When I had time I would look into it to see what could be done to give these poor souls peace. Would that mean setting the slave cabins on fire? If the spirits didn’t have an anchor, could they find the freedom of release?

  When the spirits were calmer, they pulled back. They were still with me, still following me, but they were now content to wait. Wait for what? I wondered and couldn’t help shuddering. Wait until I went to bed, then descend on me in full force so I couldn’t sleep? When I sent them a message saying I’d not listen to any spirit who pestered me while I was in the house, they backed away farther.

  Good, I thought, smiling. I’d always had a way with spirits. Just give them what they want so they could get the peace they craved. Only a few times had I run into bodiless bad spirits. For the most part evil spirits attached themselves to a person as soon as they’d demolished the body they had. Evil had an awful lot of power.

  “What are you doing down here in the Quarters?” Linc asked as soon as he saw me. When I knew there were no cameras or microphones hidden anywhere, I started to speak, but instead looked at Linc. He was wearing big, clunky training shoes, socks, red boxing shorts and nothing else. With sweat running down his bronze body he was a sight to behold! He didn’t know it, but there were four women, former slaves, hanging around him, their lust for Linc as strong as his for me had been. No wonder the poor guy was going crazy!

  “What are you grinnin’ at?” he asked as he rubbed a towel over his sweaty chest.

  “Nothing. Where did you pick up the accent?”

  There was a porch along the front of the building and Linc sat on the rail. “I guess it’s bein’ down here. It’s almost like I can hear the slaves who lived here.”

  When I started to say something, he interrupted me. “If you’re about to say somethin’ that verifies my creepy feelin’s, don’t.”

  “I was just about to say that I have a question for anybody in this room.” The four women around Linc did not take their attention from him and give it to me. In fact, I felt them moving closer to him, as though to keep me away from him. He was theirs alone. When Linc swatted at what he thought was a bug on his shoulder, I coughed to hide my smile.

  Loudly, firmly, I said, “Has anyone seen a man around here? He’s tall, about six feet three inches, and he has a little black beard like this.” I drew an imaginary line down my chin, then made a little beard at the tip.

  Suddenly, the whole room went still and in the next second there wasn’t a spirit in the room or outside of it. Every one of them had run back to wherever it was they hid.

  “Did something just happen?” Linc asked, and when I looked at him his aura was a nice reddish blue. He was ready for sex but he could also wait. With four randy, bodiless spirits taken away from him, he could cope with life again.

  I shrugged, not answering because I was putting out feelers as to where the spirits had retreated. The graveyard, I thought. Back to their unmarked graves.

  “I haven’t seen a man like that.”

  “What man?” I asked.

  “The one you just asked me about. Six three. Remember? You know, don’t you, that he’s probably only about five eight. He just looks tall to you.”

  “Ha ha,” I said. “I wasn’t talking—” I stopped because I couldn’t tell Linc who I’d been talking to. Long ago I’d found out that people got very upset about ghosts. “Are you ready for dinner?”

  “A shower, shave and I’ll be there. Looking forward to the séance?”

  I shrugged as I headed for the door. Who was the man I’d seen, the ghost-man, and why had the slave-spirits been afraid of him? “Linc,” I said, “tonight at dinner, I want you to eat just what I do. If I turn down something, I want you to turn it down, too. Understand?”

  “You think they drug the food?”

  “There sure are a lot of people sleeping this afternoon and I think people who are mildly drugged would be more likely to see what they’re supposed to see. I’ll see you in the dining room,” I said, then went back to the main house. All the way there I kept looking for the spirit-man I’d seen earlier, but I didn’t see anyone, not even slave-spirits. The