The First Ghost. Marguerite Butler
She laughed again. “No, doll, but I know your mother real well. We talk all the time.” She patted my arm. “Your mother said you didn’t have the gift, but it looks like she was wrong.”
I stared at her. Mother never talked about the family gifts. Ever. “How do you know about that?”
“I know lots of stuff, honey. I’m Death. But you can call me Hephzibah. Pleased to meet you.”
I closed my eyes, hoping she would be gone when I opened them.
This was a bad dream. I’d suffered a blow to the head. I was obviously hallucinating. With my eyes closed, the throbbing in my head worsened. I opened them gingerly.
“Boo.”
Hephzibah was real.
“We’re gonna be good friends,” she said. “I can tell. I should have known you were Imogene’s kid. You look like her. Red hair and all them freckles. Don’t you ever get any sun? That skin could use a little color to it. So when did you first start seeing spirits?”
“Is that what you are? A spirit?”
“More or less. I’m Death. Sort of an escort for the dead, a guide if you will, to the other side. I cross people over. So when did your gift finally arrive?”
I squinted at the clock hanging on the opposite wall. “Ten minutes ago? Maybe fifteen? I think. I’m not really sure.” My hands shook and I fought the urge to bury my head under the covers. I was too old. The Mahaffey gift always arrived with the first agonies of puberty. This couldn’t be happening.
Hephzibah whistled. “Brand spanking new, huh? Better get ready. Hospitals are chock-full of spirits.”
“So far you’re all I’ve seen. Maybe I won’t really see ghosts.”
“You will.”
“Maybe not.”
“If you see me, you’ll see ghosts. Trust me on this one, doll. So are you single? Married?”
“Single. Why are you here?”
“Oh, I’m just waiting. Business call, so to speak.” She tilted her head in the direction of the neighboring bed. “I got here a little early. Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the time.”
“He’s dying?”
“She. Any minute now.”
It was a sobering thought. “That’s so sad.”
“Yeah, it’s a real kick in the pants.”
“How did she...I mean will she...I mean...what...”
“Her? Murder. Sad, really. She’s pretty young. Younger than you even.”
“Isn’t her family here? Shouldn’t they be with her?”
“She ain’t got any family, unless you count an aunt in Omaha.”
“What about friends? She shouldn’t die alone.”
Hephzibah shook her head. “Just you and me, kid. She ain’t got nobody else.”
The machine that had been softly beeping next to the woman’s bed screeched. My headache flared like someone had stabbed me behind the eyes with an ice pick.
“There we go,” Hephzibah said. “About damn time.” She popped a stick of gum in her mouth.
The room exploded into activity as nurses and doctors swarmed the room, trying to revive my roommate. I could have told them the outcome.
Someone closed the curtain separating our beds. Hephzibah continued staring, like she could see through it.
Of course my mother picked this moment to walk into the room. When she spied Hephzibah standing by my bed, she dropped the cheerful vase of flowers, which landed with a crash.
“No! No! My baby,” she wailed and collapsed in a crumpled heap.
“I’m okay, Mother.”
“Imogene? Portia’s okay, honey.” My stepfather, Walter, helped Mother struggle to her feet. “See? It’s just a bump on the head.”
“Hiya, Imogene. Sorry to scare you like that,” Hephzibah said with a grin. “I’m not here for your girl. We was just having a nice chat. Oops, gotta go. It’s been real.” And just like that she walked through the curtain and out of sight.
Mother gave me a shrewd look and ordered Walter down to the gift shop to buy more flowers, drowning out his protests. “Because, darling, Portia needs flowers to brighten up the room. Don’t you, Portia? See? Off you go.”
Mother is so fanatical about keeping the family’s psychic gifts private that she’s never revealed it to Walter, not in twenty-three years of marriage. Even my brother doesn’t know about the women in the family. It’s that kind of secret.
One of the nurses trying in vain to save my neighbor attempted to steer Mother out of the room, but she was seeing her daughter and no one was stopping her. The frantic beeping turned into a long wail and finally silence.
“Time of death, ten fifteen,” someone said. I could hear the snaps of gloves being pulled off and the shuffle of paper boots. I wanted to console them and tell them it was inevitable, that it was her time, but I couldn’t find the words. Besides, I had my mother to deal with.
Mother held up an overnight case. “I brought you pajamas and a change of clothes, your toiletries and…”
“I doubt I’ll be here much longer.” Oh, how I hoped that was true. This was happening too quickly. I had just had a conversation with Death.
“But I want you to have your things. I can cancel my appointments tomorrow.”
“I’ll be fine, Mother. You don’t need to stay. Honest.”
She put her hand on her hip and studied me a moment. “So how long has this been going on?”
“You mean Hephzibah? About fifteen, maybe twenty minutes? Since I woke up here.” That was it! Maybe it was just the here. Maybe it was just the hospital. Maybe all I had to do was stay out of hospitals. I could do that.
“Then you were talking to her. Oh, honey, I’m so proud. It finally came.”
“Ease up, Mother. I’m not a little girl getting her first period. I don’t know that I’ve actually gotten anything. I saw Hephzibah. I haven’t seen any dead people or anything else spooky or weird. Please don’t make a big deal of it.” At the moment I said it, I meant it, but then I remembered the little man on the tracks. I closed my eyes. “Oh, crap,” I whispered, fighting my rising panic.
“Don’t make a big deal? Portia, this is big news. I have to call your Aunt Bella and cousin Eleanor and–”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no? It’s a big deal in this family when someone’s gift arrives. I had honestly given up on you, but–”
“I’m not sure it’s forever. I’ve probably got a concussion. I’m hoping Hephzibah disappears with the rest of…the symptoms.”
“Do you think so?” Her eyes were worried. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I don’t feel quite right. I think for now you shouldn’t tell anyone. Until we know it’s permanent and all.”
She wrung her hands. “If you think so, dear.”
“I do. Oh, look. Here’s Walter.”
He stood smiling in the doorway, holding a huge pink bouquet with a vase shaped like a pink cloud that read “It’s a Girl.”
“Do you like them?” he asked. “It’s the best I could do.”
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