A Haunted Twist of Fate (30 page)

Brenda stood in the middle of the room and incanted,
“Callie Elizabeth Hayes. I feel your presence. Please show yourself to us. We
want to talk. We’re here to help you.”

Creaking stairs caused Shay to jump. She turned and
waved her flashlight into the hallway, but saw nothing. When she turned around
again, a gray mist began to form in front of the fireplace. Slowly, the mist
took the shape of a woman. Shay held her breath. Callie’s blue eyes penetrated
her as the rest of her body materialized.

“That’s her,” Shay whispered to Brenda.

“I’ve never before seen a full body apparition that
looked so much like a living person,” Brenda whispered back.

Callie’s arms stretched out. She gazed at Shay with
longing. “Help… me.” It was the same beckoning, the same sad pleading Shay had heard
before.

“That’s why we’re here,” Brenda assured. “What do
you need from us? Tell us how we can help.”

Shay removed the tarnished band on the chain from
her pocket and held it in front of her. “Do you recognize this ring, Callie? Do
you know who it belonged to?”

Callie’s eyes grew wide. She moaned, “Ev…er…ett.”

Shay and Brenda exchanged glances. A loud bam coming
from downstairs sent a jolt straight through Shay’s body. “What was that?”

“It sounded like a door slamming open.”

Shay knew which door it was. “It’s the basement
door. He’s coming!” Her heart thundered so hard and fast, she thought it was
going to rip through her chest. She grabbed Brenda’s arm, and the two of them
scurried toward the windows as heavy, ominous footsteps pounded up the
staircase.

Suddenly, the bedroom door slammed shut. Shay felt
her hand open and her fingers spread apart. She was unable to keep her grip on
the chain as it began to float on the air toward Callie.

“What’s happening, Brenda?”

“Remember how I told you I sometimes see scenarios
play out like a movie?”

Shay nodded.

“I think we’re about to see the events that took
place in this room one hundred and twenty-five years ago. Together, our psychic
power is strong. We’re causing this to happen.”

Shay worked to still the racing rhythm of her heart
and the trembling of her legs. Callie reached for the dangling ring and slipped
the chain over her neck. The moment the ring rested against Callie’s skin, a
bright light flashed outside the window. Callie smiled and held the ring
between her fingers to admire it the way any woman would proudly regard a
cherished gift.

Shay realized Callie had returned to 1885 in her
memories, which projected themselves into the room in present day.

“She’s reliving a happy moment in her life,” Brenda
whispered.

Callie no longer gazed at Shay. She waltzed around
the room, holding her white slip in her fingertips, looking like an elegant
lady dancing at a ball. Shay could even hear her humming softly. Not daring to
breathe, let alone make a sound, Shay realized Brenda was as still as a mouse
next to her.

When a knock sounded on the wooden doorframe, Shay’s
breath stuck in her throat. She watched Callie float to the door and fling it
open. When Dean Averill pushed his way in, Shay bit back a gasp. She recognized
him from the old photo she’d had copied from the book at the historical
society, and from Frank’s photo of his grandparents.

She could see Frank in Dean’s features, but there
was no time to ponder the family connection further. Something was terribly
wrong. A rotten smell engulfed the room. It was the same sickening odor Shay
had smelled before. Her heart stopped.

Dean’s eyes were as hard and cold and black as BBs. 
His mouth turned in a snarl. He shut the door behind him and began to unbuckle
his belt.

Callie backed up and shook her head vehemently. She whirled
to run. Her mouth opened in anguish when she realized there was no escaping the
room.

Dean stalked toward her like a tiger and gripped her
around the shoulders. He forced a kiss on her. When Callie struggled away and
spat on him, he violently slapped her across the face. She went flying across
the floor. When she scrambled to her feet, she stumbled into the fireplace and
reached for the poker. A tussle ensued as she tried to hit Dean with the poker,
but she was overpowered by his strength. He batted the poker out of her hand
then grabbed her brutally around her waist. As he hauled her to the bed, she
kicked and screamed. “Help me!”

Dean shoved her onto the bed so that her legs were
dangling above the floor. She received another slap for screaming.

“Shut up, whore! My wife’s with child and you’re
going to give me what I need. Right now!” Dean unbuttoned his pants with one
hand and roughly pushed Callie’s slip to her hips.  Her sobs were
uncontrollable.

“Do something!” Shay pleaded with Brenda.  She felt
her eyes wide with terror. “He’s going to rape her!”

“I can’t do anything,” Brenda replied, with a choke.
“Neither of us can. We’re watching this as it happened that day in 1885. We
can’t change the course of history.”

Dean grunted as he struggled to get his pants down
while Callie fought like a cougar, scratching at him with her nails.

“Help me!” she screamed again.

Shay closed her eyes. “I can’t bear to watch this.” At
the sound of more footsteps thumping up the staircase, Shay’s gaze snapped to
the door as it catapulted open.

When Everett Rawlins entered, his eyes popped open,
and he growled with rage.

Shay felt weak, like she might faint. She clutched
Brenda’s hand and they stood motionless together, pressed against the wall
between the two windows. Even Brenda was trembling.

In one split second, Shay realized Everett did not
look the way he had in the cemetery. Also a full body apparition, his mouth was
not dripping blood nor was his shirt ripped open. He’d not been shot yet! She
also realized, sadly, that Dean, not Everett, was the entity who’d been
tormenting her all this time. Her stomach churned at the realization that she
was related to this evil man.

She watched Everett grab Dean by the scruff of the
neck and drag him off Callie. He swung him around. Everett was taller than Dean
by a good six inches. Dean didn’t know what had hit him when Everett retracted
his arm and punched him, shattering his nose and sending him sprawling onto the
floor.

“Ev…er…ett,” Callie whimpered.

He lifted her from the bed and cradled her in his
arms. “Sweetheart, did he hurt you?”

“Not yet,” Dean thundered from the floor.

Instinct caused Shay to scream. “Everett, watch
out!”

Everett turned and pushed Callie out of the way, but
he was unable to save his own life. The blast from Dean’s pistol sent a bullet
whizzing through the air straight into Everett’s heart. With a heavy thud, he
fell to the floor, dead.

Crying, Callie ran for the door, but Dean was too
quick. He was up on his feet blocking it, with blood flowing from his nose.

“I can’t have you telling the sheriff what happened
here. Nor my wife,” he spat out, as he wrapped his hands around her slender neck.

“Stop!” Shay shouted, knowing it wouldn’t change
what was destined to happen. Wringing her hands and barely breathing, she
watched Dean Averill choke the life out of Callie and then toss her onto the
bed like a rag doll.

Forty-Eight

Shay watched, still shaking, as Dean sat on the bed
and ran a hand through his disheveled hair.  He seemed to be in a world of the
past and unaware that she and Brenda were nearby and had seen everything.

Now she understood why Callie had been asking for
her help—to see that Everett’s name was cleared of her murder and that justice
was served. Everett had been her beau, and Dean Averill the murderer of them
both.

Shay remembered the old newspaper article she’d
read. The sheriff had found Callie and Everett dead, and Dean with a bloodied
nose. Obviously, Dean had contrived a story making him appear the hero.  Everett
Rawlins had gone to his grave labeled a rapist and a killer.

Shay wept for Everett and Callie, who had been in
love. It was all crystal clear. Apparently Callie had been unable to move on
until the truth was revealed. The only burning question remaining was why she’d
tried to strangle Shay.

“What do we do now?” Shay whispered to Brenda.

At the sound of her voice, Dean lifted his head and
turned. Dark eyes drilled her, and the room grew so cold, she shivered. “Brenda?
What’s happening? I thought he couldn’t see us.”

“Stay calm,” Brenda advised, as Dean slowly stood. A
low growl erupted from his throat. Brenda took a step forward and called out to
him in a strong, powerful voice. “Dean Averill, you have no power here. You are
dead and cannot hurt Callie or Shay any longer. We want you gone. You are not
welcome in this place. Go to hell where you belong!”

Moving at the speed of lightning, Dean grabbed
Brenda by the throat with elongated fingers. Shay screamed as he hauled Brenda
into the air with what seemed like superhuman strength. Brenda’s feet kicked,
and she gasped for air.

“Let go of her!” Shay shrieked, striking at him with
fists that went straight through him. What was she to do? She knew what this
demon was capable of. How was she going to save Brenda? She threw her arms
around Brenda’s waist and pulled on her, but Dean’s strength was too potent. “Leave
us alone!” she screamed, repeating Brenda’s incantations. “Go to hell!”

Suddenly, flames exploded from across the room. Shay
jerked her head and saw Callie hovering next to the fireplace. Dean’s dark gaze
flew to her, too. Remarkably, he released Brenda and she fell to the floor, wheezing
for air, but conscious. The orange flames shot out of the fireplace and licked
the sky. Groaning, Dean hid his face.

Shay helped Brenda scramble to the corner as Everett
rose from the floor. In the same lightning speed that Dean had latched onto
Brenda’s throat, Everett bolted toward Dean and pushed him into the fireplace.

“No!” Dean cried. “No fire!”

Callie’s eyes penetrated him like swords as she
plunged her hand into the flames and scooped up a ball of blazing heat and
hurled it at him. The ball exploded, and a raging inferno engulfed Dean in a
spinning vortex. Covering her ears to drown out his animalistic screams, Shay
watched as the tornado of fire disappeared into the floor with a big whoosh.

The long silence that followed was eerie. Shay and
Brenda were still huddled together on the floor in the corner. Brenda pointed
to the doorway. “Look over there.” Standing outside in the hall were more than
a dozen men. Shay knew they were the card players, and the drinkers and
gamblers who had been her invisible companions. She helped Brenda to her feet.

Callie and Everett stood near the fireplace with
their arms wound around each other.  Their bodies were growing lighter in hue and
density as the seconds ticked by. Shay moved toward Callie.

“Is that why you came to me? Is this what you
wanted? For Everett’s name to be cleared and for the real murderer to be
known?”

Callie nodded and smiled at Everett.

“It’s time for you to go into the light now,” Brenda
said. “Both of you. I’ll help you to cross, too.” She acknowledged the men in
the hall. “It’s time for you all to move on.”

“Wait,” Shay said. “I need to know one thing before
they go. Callie, why did you choke me that first night and try to drown me in
the bathtub? It felt like you were trying to kill me.” She rubbed her neck,
recalling the sensations that had felt very real.

“Cyn...th…ia,” Callie said, softly.

Shay remembered the photo of Frank’s grandmother—the
woman Frank and Colt thought she resembled. “Cynthia Averill?”

Callie nodded.  Her mouth twisted in pain when she
said, “I… thought…you…were her.”

Shay believed she understood. She looked so much
like Dean’s wife that Callie must have been confused about the time period and
wanted to take out her anger on Cynthia for what Dean had done. “It’s all right,”
Shay assured her. “I promise to make the truth known about what really happened
to you both that day.”

“Thank…you.” Callie’s face relaxed.

In what seemed like the best special effects Shay
had ever seen, the ceiling opened just then to shower them all with blinding
white light. 

Brenda said, “It’s time for you to cross over. Go
now, and rest in peace.”

Shay was a silent witness as the spirits stepped
into the light and faded away one by one. But when Callie and Everett turned
and waved, bringing up the end of the procession, it took great effort to keep
her tears from flowing. She was happy the lovers would be together now, for all
eternity.

After closing her eyes and quietly saying a prayer
for their journey to be a safe one, she reopened them and looked up. The ceiling
had closed again.

Brenda sighed. “It’s done, Shay. They’re all gone. How
do you feel?”