"I'm so sorry about this, Nan," George flustered for the sixth time, quickly tying her hair back into the usual ponytail. "It was supposed to be our weekend. I needed this as much as you do. I only have to cover at work for a few hours, okay? I should be back mid-afternoon. I'm going to chew this guy's ear off at work on Monday for calling out."
Nancy dissipated George's worries with a wave of her hand. "Stop it, it's fine. You've spent half your life revolving around my schedule, now it's time for the other way around for a change."
"There's leftovers in the fridge—"
"Thanks, Mom."
"We're right in downtown here, too, you know," George said, shouldering her bag. "There should be something to do in the area if you want to get out. The neighborhood can be rough, but I don't need to give you any advice on how to take care of yourself."
"I'll check online for something," Nancy said, yawning. "Go on."
A minute later, Nancy could hear George's clunker puttering out of the parking space of her apartment complex. Nancy took another sip of coffee and wrinkled her nose. The caffeine was helpful, but she still hated the taste.
Draining her mug in the sink, Nancy took a moment to bask in the southern sunlight coming through George's apartment window. She was surprised to feel a wanderlust stirring in her, an urge to explore a new area. It was a familiar feeling, a pleasant one that she hadn't experienced in a long time. Don't go out there finding a new mystery, Nancy, we're on vacation! Nancy could hear George yelling in her conscience. Maybe Nancy was starting to get better after all…despite the shadows she'd seen last night.
Were the shadows hallucinations? She'd been taking her vitamins faithfully, and had never had this symptom before. Nancy couldn't decide how she felt about the shadows, either. Were they trying to scare her? Protect her? Show her something? Or was she reading too much into their beckoning motions? Deciding to forget about it for today, Nancy pulled out her Smart phone to follow her friend's advice.
Googling "Richmond, VA attractions," Nancy ignored the first few results, restaurants and money-making gimmicks, and kept scrolling. She gasped as she saw number eleven on the list.
Her words from a couple of weeks ago echoed in her mind: There are four Poe houses, actually. One in Philadelphia, one in Baltimore, one in Richmond, and one in the Bronx.
An hour later, showered and dressed, Nancy let the chill wind blow-dry her slightly damp hair as her Smart Phone guided her through the streets. Her self-preservation instincts returned, scanning her surroundings for safety and anything suspicious as she navigated downtown Richmond. The smells of burgers and beers wafted toward her from a local bar, already open and busy on a sunny fall Saturday.
"This is it," she muttered, assessing the building before her. She knew to take the sight before her with a grain of salt; Poe had lived two hundred years ago, so it had undergone extensive renovations.
"What the…?" Nancy said to herself, watching as people who looked like Swat team members were setting up strange-looking equipment both outside and inside the house. Nancy had a good working knowledge of what crime scene instruments looked like, but she had never seen these varieties before.
"Come on in, the Poe house is still open," one person in uniform called to Nancy cheerfully, obviously under no undue stress by whatever the situation was. Nancy followed the advice and hurried inside, paying the $5 entrance fee after showing her student ID.
"You look surprised—hmm, I wonder why," a woman said in an inviting voice. Nancy turned to face her direction, and saw a plump, matronly-looking woman in her early 40s, sitting at a table with pamphlets. "Richmond Paranormal Investigators" was written in large block letters, and pictures and information were set up science fair-style, the presentation backed in cardboard. Nancy walked toward the display, intrigued.
The woman pointed to her own name tag. "I am Gretchen. As you can see. My organization is made up of volunteers, and during the month of October we are asked to visit a variety of locations, checking for energy activity. We'll try to find out today if there is any lingering activity here…even though Poe never actually lived in this house, it contains many of his personal items, furniture, and manuscripts. It makes sense that some energy of a writer would want to remain with his creation."
Nancy took a seat in front of the display, introducing herself. She noticed sheepishly that the posted museum hours were 10 to 5; she was lucky that they'd let her in a half hour early. "So how do you go about looking for…"
"We have all this equipment," Gretchen said, gesturing around her, "and we don't do traditional séances, Ouija boards, all the questions that we're usually asked. You see, every person on this earth generates energy. You and I are doing it right now. Therefore, when a life form passes away, all that happens is that its energy changes into a different form. Energy will want to remain where it is if it has a reason for doing so. Richmond Paranormal Investigators provides our services free of charge to anyone who believes they have energy, usually malevolent energy, interfering with normal activities. Sometimes it's just that the pipes are clogged and we can give them a referral and reassurance, and other times it takes the combined efforts of everyone in a circle to send a message to the energy that it's okay to move on."
A group of investigators sat in a circle, watching a ball roll on the floor. It appeared to roll of its own free will, but always heading toward one individual. Several group members were smiling knowingly. "Always toward you, Brenda," one young man teased.
Nancy walked toward them for a better look at the ball. When she got within several feet of the circle, the ball began to roll slowly toward her direction.
Heads began to turn toward Nancy's way. "You're hired," the same young man said.
"Stop scaring her—it's fine, Nancy," Gretchen said from her place at the table. "The purpose of that ball is to allow a conduit with the energy in this room. We aren't controlling the energy, we aren't telling it what to do. The energy can express itself in that ball, and choose to go wherever in the room that it wants to go."
"And some entities are more sensitive to energy fluctuations than others," Brenda said, looking pointedly at Nancy. "And more attractive. I held the reigning title until now."
Nancy gaped at the group, unable to respond. She couldn't believe she was entertaining these thoughts…how many times had she been called to investigate a ghost story, and searched out the criminal activity underneath? She had never had much tolerance for this kind of quackery.
"Come back over here, Nancy," Gretchen called, and Nancy complied. "You're still a normal person. The reason we check for energy flow is that, even though everyone has heard of a haunted house, most don't realize that people can be attractive to energy. Have you ever…maybe felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand up for no reason, or be sure you saw or heard something that other people didn't?"
Nancy's mouth felt dry. She swallowed. "Well…sometimes…but I…there are other reasons for it, too."
"Like what?" Gretchen was assertive enough to ask questions directly, and friendly enough to make Nancy want to open up as well. Nancy found herself valuing this woman's opinion.
"Like…" Nancy gazed at a point over Gretchen's right shoulder, embarrassed. "Well, I saw two psychiatrists about it, and they gave me two different diagnoses."
"Okay." Gretchen nodded for Nancy to continue, like Nancy had only been commenting on the weather.
"I, ah…I had an episode about a year ago, and I lost some time. I don't know where those few days went, and I was not my usual self, to put it mildly. The emergency doctor called it psychotic disorder with depressive features."
"And what did the other one say?" Gretchen asked.
Nancy rubbed the bottom of her sweater between her forefinger and thumb, a self-soothing technique she'd been taught by a nurse. "My discharge plan involved going to a regular outpatient psychiatrist, and he said that it was too soon to give me such a heavy label. Instead, he thinks I have condition known as conversion disorder…basically, when I become very upset, my body acts out."
"And do you agree with either of these two assessments?" Gretchen asked.
Nancy shrugged. "I think the way I think of the world changed, and it's hard to adjust to being a less assertive, less risk-taking person. Something traumatic happened, my priorities changed, and it's a shock." Nancy glanced sidelong at the ball, still rolling in its circle. "I guarantee that a year and a half ago, that ball would have run far away from me."
Gretchen nodded in acknowledgement. "There are many theories of what you refer to as "psychosis," Nancy. Some people in my field believe that some types of schizophrenia are simply the result of an exceptionally sensitive state of consciousness. There are old voices in the air all around us right now, just in different frequencies, and if someone's mental radio is tuned to all sorts of stations…well, you can see how that might be distracting."
Nancy took some introductory material from the table and slipped it into her purse for later. She couldn't help but think of Zane, having an increase of symptoms when he was inside the Philadelphia Poe house.
"Therefore medications serve to dampen some of the receptors in the brain, so not every mass of energy is allowed to intrude." Gretchen squinted her eyes slightly and leaned forward for emphasis. "Understand, Nancy, I'm not telling you to stop your traditional treatments. I'm just letting you know that there's a bigger picture as well. You yourself have to decide what kind of energy is permissible in your life, and how much. Everyday decisions, thoughts, and emotions will send the message to energy sources of what is invited near you and what isn't. You are much more powerful than you think."
Although acutely listening to Gretchen's words, Nancy became increasingly uncomfortable at the intimacy of the conversation, and stood up to leave at the next available opportunity. "Thank you so much, I promise to think of everything you've said to me," she said, folding up a pamphlet and putting it in her purse. "The museum is opening soon. I'll let you get your last-minute things done."
Gretchen continued to follow Nancy with her eyes as Nancy entered the exhibition hall.
Nancy allowed herself to feel like a tourist, examining each exhibit and wondering what it must have been like in Edgar's shoes, a tortured genius so poorly compensated or respected for his work. Due to lax copyright restrictions, Poe had lived in poverty bordering on destitution for the duration of his life, unable to afford basic care for his terminally ill wife. Although popular with the masses, he'd faced much condescension from the critics, mainly for his scathing critiques of the literary establishment and many of its writers. Poe also had a strong streak of self-sabotage in his nature; just when things began looking hopeful for him, he'd try to sell magazine subscriptions at a job interview, or read one of his worst poems when asked to present at an elite symposium.
"Kind of like visiting a second Poe house, when I blacked out at another one two weeks ago," Nancy muttered to herself. She knew that she was attracted to Poe because there were so many different ways to interpret his texts; he certainly believed that there were many layers to the human psyche, and Nancy was living proof that this concept rang with truth.
Nancy heard a low ding coming from her phone, signaling that she had a text. It might be George, she thought with trepidation, glancing at her watch. She'd been gone a long time.
Reaching into her pocket and pulling out her phone, Nancy opened the dialogue box and saw a mass text from Joe Hardy, sent to everyone on his contacts list. A picture of an infant with blonde fuzz and a small, upturned nose filled Nancy's screen. Beneath was the caption: "Please welcome into the world Madeleine Hardy, born Thursday. Never was there a more loved, cherished baby."