The Promise
Joanne Davis had not expected to be caught up in a massive thunderstorm as soon as she left work to go home that night. It was just her luck though she thought to herself. She had been working late for some extra money and had just gotten off of the late shift. As soon as she had started down the road though, the rain had started coming down in sheets.
She had tried to keep driving for a few more minutes, but then the storm became even worse. There were massive lightning bolts suddenly appearing everywhere and hitting the ground all around her. One of the bolts managed somehow to strike the front of her car and hit her engine. The car died immediately, and she suddenly found herself stuck on the side of the road while the lighting was still hitting all around her. She became terrified and just wanted to get to safety somewhere immediately.
She knew that it was probably crazy to run out of your car in the middle of a lightning storm, but considering that the lightning had already hit it once it suddenly didn't seem like the safest of places to be anymore. She raced out of the car and started running down the road in a desperate search for somewhere safe to be in the middle of this horrible mess.
After searching for a long time and seeing no better alternatives nearby, she decided to head for the last place that she would usually consider going to in the middle of the night as she entered an old cemetery. She was very good at climbing when she wanted to be and so she quickly climbed up the locked iron gates and made her way inside. In her blind panic, it never occurred to her just how dangerous it had been to do such a thing in the middle of a lightning storm.
She looked around quickly as she raced through the rows of old graves and soon found an old crypt. She felt if she could just get inside of it, she would be safe from the weather until the storm had passed.
She was surprised to find no lock on the door, but she paid it no further thought as she hurried inside of the old building while thunderbolts still kept crashing down all around her. As she raced inside, she shut the door firmly behind her to keep out the elements.
Once inside, her panic slowly subsided as she sat down in the middle of the room and tried to calm herself down. Eventually she realized that she was next to a casket, and she began to feel very uncomfortable for the first time as she realized that she was right next to someone's body.
"Well, what did you expect to find inside a crypt in a graveyard? A hamburger and fries?" Joanne said to herself nervously in an effort to bolster her spirits.
That last bit was her stomach talking of course. She had been walking for nearly an hour, and it was almost 1 AM now. She was cold, tired, and starving. She hadn't eaten anything since early that morning. She had just been too depressed lately to eat like she usually did, and now that was coming back to haunt her.
She looked at the name on the casket as she turned on her cell phone for light. The plaque on the top of the lid read:
Mary Ophelia Adams
1896 – 1922
Silent Film Star
She will love on forever in the hearts of her fans.
"Well, at least I get to spend the night with someone famous even if I've never heard of her," Joanne said to herself.
She started to look the woman up on her cell phone and quickly found a clip from one of her movies that she watched. Mary had been a beautiful blonde who was full of life and personality. She could see that just from watching the two minute clip. She liked what she saw and thought that she was a very good actress despite not having any lines to speak since the movie was made several years before movies had sound. She was able to convey her emotions and thoughts incredibly well with just her expressions and body language alone. Joanne was very impressed.
"She's a lot better than the so called actors of today. I guess you had to be back then in the days before special effects and loud explosions," Joanne said to herself.
Joanne was a huge silent movie fan which some people found surprising for someone who was in their early twenties. She and her dad used to watch a lot of them when she was a little girl though, and he had passed on his love for them to her.
She had thought that she knew a lot about the old silent film stars, but she had never heard of Mary. She made a mental note to watch more of her films later. If there was a later that was.
She could hear the storm getting increasingly worse outside, and she heard the unmistakable sounds of hailstones hitting the roof of the crypt now as the whole building began to shake with the force of the wind outside.
"What is this? Don't tell me there's a tornado outside," Joanne complained to herself.
She began to shake with fear as the winds grew louder and louder. She hoped that this old building didn't fall down on her. She hadn't known where else to go. She realized now that she probably would have been better off staying in her car, but it was a little too late for that now.
"Please let me make it through the night," Joanne pleaded.
She decided to look at the silent film clip again to calm her nerves as the noises of the storm continued to grow worse and worse. It was just as well that the clip was silent because the storm was so loud that she doubted that she could have heard it anyway even if there had been sound on it.
"Hello?" a female voice said behind Joanne as clear as day.
Somehow she had heard it even through the incredible din made by the storm, and it made her jump right out of her skin as she screamed in terror.
She instantly jumped to her feet as she saw a transparent image of a woman in old style clothing standing right behind her just a few feet away. She became even more terrified as she recognized the woman's face. She had just been watching it on the clip on her phone.
She began to wonder if she was going insane or had she fallen asleep in the crypt and become caught in the middle of a nightmare. She quickly backed away from the ghostly woman as she headed toward the door of the crypt.
"Who are you, and where am I? What is this place?" the image of Mary asked in a tone of fear.
"Leave me alone whatever you are. Just go away," Joanne said.
"Why are you so afraid of me?" Mary asked in confusion.
"Have you looked at yourself? I can see right through you. Also I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but you're dead. That's your coffin right behind you," Joanne said.
"What? No. That's not possible. I . . . ," Mary said as she began to sob.
Joanne could see that the full impact of the truth had just hit her in that moment. Her fear of the ghost turned into pity and sorrow for her instead instantly.
"I'm sorry. I should have put that more tactfully I know," Joanne said in a gentle voice.
"It's not you. I just remembered. I can recall everything now. I know exactly what happened on the day that I . . . ," Mary's voice broke before she could say the final word.
At that moment, the whole crypt shook wildly as if it was about to come down on top of them, and Joanne screamed in fear. Mary was suddenly standing right next to her in the next moment. Instead of being afraid of her sudden nearness, her comforting presence somehow seemed to make Joanne feel safe instead.
"It's okay. The storm won't touch you in here," Mary said with a tone of absolute surety.
"How do you know that?" Joanne asked.
"I don't know. I just do. I can feel that it's not your time yet. It must be some kind of new ghostly sixth sense or something. I'm sorry if I scared you before. I was confused. My first memory since dying is waking up in this place as if from a dream and seeing you," Mary admitted.
"Was it like you were asleep then?" Joanne asked curiously.
"No. It was just like one moment I was dying, and then the next one I was here. There was nothing in between, but it was just like the kind of confusion that you experience as you first wake up in the morning. The sudden change in my situation confused me for a minute there," Mary confided in her.
"Are you okay now?" Joanne asked.
"I'm fine. I have no more problems anymore. I'm dead. That's pretty much the end of all of my problems I think," Mary said with a small smile.
"My name's Joanne Davis. I already know who you are," Joanne said.
"You do? Are you a fan?" Mary asked.
"No. At least I wasn't until I came in here. I certainly am now though. Your acting is wonderful," Joanne said.
"How do you know that if you've never seen one of my movies before you came in here?" Mary asked.
"I saw a clip from one of them on my phone," Joanne said as she showed the video to Mary.
"That's a phone? How is it playing my movie on such a small screen?" Mary asked in amazement.
"I don't know. It's all beyond me. It just does," Joanne said feeling very silly all of a sudden for not being able to explain it better to her.
"How long have I been dead?" Mary asked.
She knew that it must have been a long time for technology to have progressed this far. She started to wonder why she was only just now emerging from her long sleep, and why was it at this particular moment.
She now found herself starting to become curious about Joanne. Was it something about her in particular that had made her wake at this particular time? It must be. Why else would she only wake when she was here?
"You're been dead for over ninety years apparently according to the year on that casket," Joanne said.
"Ninety years," Mary said in a combination of awe and disbelief.
"I guess that's a major thing to have to come to grips with," Joanne said.
"Yes, it is. It's just unbelievable. It doesn't seem real somehow. None of this does. If you weren't here, I'd think that I was dreaming the whole thing," Mary said sadly.
"Maybe you are. Maybe my whole life is just your dream. Or more like a nightmare. That would seem right somehow," Joanne said.
"Why?" Mary asked curiously.
"No reason. It seems that you've still got a fan club. They've even released all of your surviving movies onto DVD," Joanne said as she quickly changed the subject.
"That's a lot to hit me with right off the bat there, old girl. I have no idea what half of what you just said meant," Mary said smiling.
"Old girl? I'm only in my twenties," Joanne said with an annoyed look on her face.
"Sorry. It was the way I talked. I'm slowly recovering my old jargon along with my senses. I'm sure I sound all outdated to you, but old habits die hard you know. Just like me apparently," Mary said.
"I have a feeling that both of us are going to have a language barrier. Okay, how to explain what I meant? What I just said was that you had a large group of fans even now after all of this time who still love to watch your movies. They love them so much that they've been put on what I can best describe as our version of records which are called DVDs. Only these records play movies instead of songs. Some of your movies haven't survived the years for one reason or another, but most of them have. All of the ones that still exist have been put out for your fans to buy and enjoy any time that they want. Does any of that make any sense to you?' Joanne asked.
"I think so, yes. So people have a way of watching movies in their homes now? That's amazing! Even more amazing is that anybody would still remember me or even care about my movies. I'm sure that they must be horribly out of date by now just like me," Mary said.
"Will you stop feeling sorry for yourself?" Joanne said.
"I just woke up to find that I've been dead for 90 years, and I'm a ghost. I think that now is the perfect time to feel sorry for myself, sweetie," Mary said.
"What about me? At least you can't die again. I may get killed yet in this horrible storm," Joanne said as the noise outside became even worse somehow.
"I told you that you would be fine. Stop worrying about it," Mary said.
"Yeah, you never really explained just how that you knew that though," Joanne said.
"I just do. I don't know how," Mary said.
"It's your mystic ghost sense then?" Joanne asked laughing.
"Something like that I guess. I'm new to all of this. Give me a break," Mary said.
"At least you know that your life meant something. People still remember you and talk about you. Your films still mean something even today almost a hundred years later. No one's going to remember me a hundred years later," Joanne said in a depressed voice.
"How do you know? There's no way for any of us to know if and how that we'll be remembered. I had no idea until now that I would be remembered. Do you know how many actresses didn't make it in pictures, or even worse did make it but quickly lost their popularity and became yesterday's news? I used to worry about it happening to me all of the time. Maybe if I hadn't died young and the way that I did, I'd be forgotten now too. I'm sure what happened to me is what's kept me talked about. Look at that stupid woman and what she did to herself is what they say I'm sure," Mary said.
"Not from what I've seen. Most of the things that I've seen in the short time that I've been here looking over your career on the internet say that it's so sad that you died so young. They thought that you might have become a major star if you had lived," Joanne said.
"Really? That's so sweet, and a lot better than I deserve! What's the internet?" Mary asked.
"It's a way that we have now of communicating with each other over long distances similar to telephones but with words instead of voices. I guess that's the best way to describe it. We exchange all kinds of information with each other worldwide now, and I can get it on my phone here," Joanne explained.
"So the phone can tell you all about my life. You know what happened to me then if that's true," Mary said.
"Yes. I would rather hear it from you though," Joanne said.
"I came back from a late night party, and I was feeling sick. I took something that I thought was for nausea, but it turned out to be a deadly poison instead. I had gotten my nausea medicine mixed up with a treatment for a bad rash that I had gotten recently. Unfortunately, the rash medicine was fatal if taken internally. I still don't know how I did that. I think that it was from being so drunk. Don't ever get so drunk that you don't even know what you're putting in your mouth, Jo. Despite what I heard others saying even then, I didn't do it on purpose. It was just a stupid, stupid mistake," Mary said mournfully.
"Did it hurt as much as the internet says that it did? It says that you suffered a lot before you died," Joanne asked.
"Yes, it did. I'd never been in so much pain in my life, and I was never so scared either. It took me days to die, Joanne. I don't recommend it," Mary said.
Mary noticed that Joanne jumped when she said that. She knew that she had hit a nerve somehow. She wondered if that might be what she was here about.
"Joanne, why are you asking me about such a morbid thing?" Mary asked.
"No reason. Just curiosity," Joanne said a little too quickly.
"Don't do it, Jo," Mary said.
"Do what?" Joanne asked innocently.
"Don't do whatever you're planning on doing to end your life. Whatever your problems are, it's not worth it," Mary said.
"How would you know? At least you were rich and got to live a movie star's life. I have to struggle for everything that I have, and that's not much. All that I do is work every day at my two rotten jobs that barely even pay me enough to live off of. I just keep getting worse and worse off every day it seems like. I have nothing, and it looks like I never will. Oh and I have no one special at all in my life either. In fact, I'm totally alone now. I have no one at all to talk to anymore or to turn to when I need help. If anyone ever had a reason to end it all, then it would be me," Joanne said as she broke down into tears.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that you're so unsatisfied with your life. Killing yourself isn't the answer though. I know that. I learned the true meaning of regret from that incident. I had several long pain-filled days to think it over in long and excruciating detail after all. All that I could do was to lie there in agony and think about how I would like to undo what I did. I could do nothing but spend my last days of life filled with absolute sorrow over the undeniable fact that I couldn't. I really wanted to see how far my life would have gone. I had such huge dreams for myself, and it was all thrown away because of one stupid mistake. The only difference between you and me will be that I didn't do it on purpose. You'll still find out just how big a mistake that it was though. You'll finally realize the full horrifying truth about what you did when it's much too late to do anything about it just like I did if you're crazy enough to go through with it. The last thing that will be on your mind as you die will be a list of all of your regrets of what you're not going to get to do anymore. I know because that was the last thing that was on my mind at the end. It was filled with nothing but regret and sorrow!" Mary said in anger.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I just wanted it all to end," Joanne admitted in an emotion-filled voice.
"What about now?" Mary asked.
"I don't think that I want to go through with it now. I don't think that I would be able to after listening to you speak about what happened to you and seeing how sad that you are about it. In fact, I know that I won't. I don't want to end up like you. It seems that not even death is easy. Why is everything so hard, Mary?" Joanne asked.
"I don't know, Jo. I just don't know," Mary said.
"We're certainly a miserable pair, aren't we?" Joanne said.
"We're not likely to be cast in the latest comedy that's for sure," Mary said with a bit of a smile beginning to creep onto her face.
"I'm so glad that I met you. I think that I would have been making a huge mistake if that storm hadn't come up to stop me tonight," Joanne said.
"You were going to do it tonight?" Mary asked surprised.
"Yes. I was planning on doing that when I got home. I was going to write out a note and everything. Now though I don't want to anymore. I'm sorry for saying that I don't want to wind up like you. I didn't mean any offense," Joanne said.
"I'm not offended at all if it will keep you from making the same horrible mistake that I did," Mary said.
"Do you think that I was brought here on purpose so that I could meet you? It's starting to seem like it," Joanne said.
"I don't know. I'm just so glad that it happened the way that it did, and that I got the chance to meet you," Mary said.
The storm was over now, but the two of them had gotten so caught up in their conversation with each other that they hadn't even noticed it until now. They both went silent as they could no longer hear the sounds of the storm outside. Joanne silently opened the door to the crypt and poked her head outside.
She could see devastation everywhere as she saw fallen trees and broken pieces of headstone strewn all across the graveyard. She shuddered as she considered what could have happened to her if she had remained outside during all of that.
"Are you staying the night, or are you going now? You're welcome to stay until daylight if you want. I wouldn't feel right about you going out by yourself alone at night," Mary said.
"Thank you. I think that I will. I really don't to be walking down the road alone at night. That would not be a good idea," Joanne said.
Then she started to laugh.
"What in the world are you laughing about, Jo?" Mary asked.
"It just occurred to me how weird it is that I feel safer in a crypt with a ghost in the middle of the night than I do outside. That just amuses me," Joanne said still laughing.
"I'm a friendly ghost though. That makes a difference. No clanking chains here," Mary said with a giggle.
"I'm so glad that of all of the ghosts that I could have ended up with that I found you. Especially since I used to love silent movies so much when I was a kid," Joanne said.
"Silent movies? So they finally made movies with sound?" Mary asked.
"Yes. A couple of years after you died," Joanne said.
"I always thought that they would. I mean it was inevitable that it would happen sooner or later. I often wondered if my career would survive it," Mary said.
"Why? You have an excellent voice," Joanne said.
"Thank you. It's just that I never learned how to act that way since I never had to speak any lines. I suppose I could have learned though," Mary said with a trace of regret beginning to come back into her voice now.
"What will happen to you when I leave?" Joanne asked her as a way to change the subject and because it had just occurred to her at that moment.
"I don't know. I really don't look forward to staying here alone for all eternity," Mary said.
"Come with me then," Joanne offered.
"Are you sure?" Mary asked.
"Yeah, I don't want you to be here alone forever either. Come with me and stay at my house. That way neither of us will be lonely. We can keep each other company," Joanne said.
"Do you realize what you're saying? You're asking a ghost to come and haunt your house. Most people don't do that," Mary said.
"Most people don't talk to ghosts as much as I've talked to you. Maybe they just haven't gotten to know them well enough, or they'd come to like them too just like I have," Joanne said.
"I really doubt most ghosts are like me. Okay. I'll go with you, but the minute that you don't want me there anymore I'll go. I promise you that," Mary said.
"I don't think that I'll be making you keep that promise. You know this will be so cool. I can ask you all kinds of questions about movie making in the old days. There are so many things that I always wanted to know about that time in movie history," Joanne said gleefully.
"Then ask away. I've got all eternity it seems. I don't seem to be going anywhere else anytime soon, Jo," Mary said.
"Do you have to keep calling me that? My name's Joanne," Joanne said.
"I like Jo better. There was someone very special to me that was named Jo once. You remind me a lot of her. It just makes me feel better as if she's still with me. I feel halfway alive again that way," Mary admitted.
"It's okay then. We'll stick with Jo," Joanne relented.
"Good. I think that it's best that you get some sleep then until dawn. Don't worry about anything. Just relax, and I'll watch over you until it's time for you to wake up," Mary said in a gentle voice.
"Thank you, Mary. Thank you for everything," Joanne said as she found a corner of the crypt to lie down in and fall asleep.
She was totally exhausted after the horrifying experience that she had just gone through after all both mentally and physically. Sleep came easy for her surprisingly enough even with a ghost nearby watching her. She no longer felt frightened of Mary in the slightest now after all.
Mary was like a long lost friend to her. After only spending a few hours alone talking with her, she felt like she had known her forever somehow. She began to think about how strange that was as she finally drifted off to sleep for the night while Mary watched over her.
Mary kept staring at Joanne in amazement. She couldn't believe how much that she looked and acted like her sister. For a moment when she first saw her, she had thought that Joanne actually was her sister.
She could see that she wasn't now, but the similarities were truly amazing and went beyond mere appearance. Her sister, Joanna, had died a week before she had by committing suicide after their father had suddenly died. The sudden loss of their father had been too much for her apparently.
Mary had been away filming a movie at the time, and the news had utterly devastated her. She had immediately blamed herself for not being there to stop her. That was probably why Mary had made the fatal mistake that she had because she had been so upset at losing both her sister and her father at practically the same time that she had been walking around in a daze that entire week afterward.
She had been constantly making mistakes that whole time both in her movie shoots and in her everyday life. That mental distraction together with the alcohol that she had been drinking had been what had made her take the rash medicine by mistake that fateful night she was sure of that.
Could it really be a coincidence that someone so much like her sister who had been about to commit suicide too had been led to her by a freak storm tonight? It was like she had been given another chance to save her sister this time, and thankfully she had finally done it. This time she had saved Joanne from making the same mistake that her sister had. She even had a feeling that Joanne's depression stemmed from losing her father as well by the way that she had acted when she had mentioned him.
She didn't believe in that much of a coincidence personally. She believed that Joanne had been brought to her for a reason. She was supposed to save her tonight and to make sure that she had a good life. She was almost certain of that now. In a way, it was like they were both being given a second chance. She felt as if she was being reunited with her sister in a way.
She made a solemn pledge to herself from that moment on to watch over and protect Joanne for the rest of her life. She would become her guardian angel in a way she supposed. That appealed to her somehow. It also made her laugh to herself. She had been far from an angel when she had been alive although she had never been a devil either. She had been somewhere in between.
As Joanne slept peacefully, she wondered if in some way that she was her sister, Jo, returned to her somehow. That was silly though of course. Things didn't really work that way, did they? Surely that only happened in fanciful stories.
Joanne had a strange dream as she slept that night. She dreamed about her and Mary growing up together and being the best of friends. No, they were more than that. Much more. She and Mary were sisters. Mary called her Jo, and she had given Mary the nickname of Birdie because she had always sung as beautifully as a bird ever since that she could remember. They were sisters who had loved each very much, and who had always swore to each other that they would stay together forever no matter what.
She woke up from the dream and shook her head at how silly it was. It must have just been her mind's way of processing the presence of Mary nearby. Still the dream had been so real though. It was almost as if it was more a memory than a dream.
"Mary, did you ever have a sister who promised you that if she ever died first that she would come back to you somehow?" Joanne asked Mary out of the blue.
Mary looked at her in shock as she said, "Yes, and I made the same pledge to her as well. How could you possibly know that? Neither of us ever told anyone that."
I don't know. I just had a dream about it just now. It seemed so real like it had happened to me somehow. That's silly though, right?" Joanne asked her as she drifted back off to sleep.
"Yes, of course. It must just be a coincidence," Mary said, not believing it for an instant.
"You're right I'm sure," Joanne said sleepily.
"Good night, Jo," Mary said.
"Good night, Birdie," Joanne said as she completely drifted off.
It was her! Mary was sure of it now. How else could she know that name? Only Jo had ever called her that. Mary was absolutely certain now that somehow in some way that her sister had been given a second chance at life and had been brought back to her.
Both of them had kept the promise that they had made to each other so long ago and had been reunited at last. It wasn't exactly the way that she had imagined such a reunion ever occurring, but she would take it.
After ninety years apart from each other, the Adams sisters had finally been reunited at last. This time nothing was ever going to tear them apart again. She silently promised both herself and Joanne that, and she somehow knew that she would keep that promise as unlikely as that seemed. If she had learned nothing else tonight, she had learned that not even dying could make an Adams girl break her promises.