Free Waiting Spirits by Bruce Coville Page A

steps. Setting down her book, the old woman peered at her granddaughter over the rim of her glasses.
    â€œMind if I sit down?” asked Lisa, gesturing toward the swing.
    Mrs. Miles smiled. “Not at all. Glad to have you.”
    Lisa settled in next to her grandmother, then reached over and took the book from her lap. She grinned. Most of the women on the beach were reading whatever novel was on top of the current bestseller list. Not her grandmother. She was totally absorbed in Oil-Bearing Properties of Devonian Shale: A Research Analysis, by Dr. Edgar Martinson.
    â€œLooks fascinating,” said Lisa drily.
    Her grandmother chuckled. “It is, for an old rockhound like me.” She patted Lisa on the knee. “Now, I know you’re very fond of me. I also know that you almost never sit down just to talk.”
    When Lisa started to protest her grandmother said, “Oh, baloney. It doesn’t bother me that you came to sit with me for a reason. But don’t try to pretend it isn’t so. You’ve got other things on your mind, and so have I. Right now, I would guess that whatever you have on your mind is something you think I can help with. So out with it. What’s up?”
    Lisa looked at her grandmother and thought what an odd mix she was, sometimes brusque and sometimes tender, sometimes strictly business and sometimes very silly. She liked that about her.
    Steeling herself, trying not to let her voice quiver, she said abruptly, “I want to know what’s going on here. Tell me what you know.”
    It was as if a curtain had been pulled across her grandmother’s eyes. “What are you talking about?”
    Lisa got angry. “Don’t pretend you don’t know, Gramma. Ever since we started that automatic writing, things have been weird in this house. And it’s not coming from me!” she added defiantly, remembering what her grandmother had said about poltergeist activity.
    â€œLisa, you will watch your tone of voice when you speak to me,” said Dr. Miles sharply.
    Lisa faltered. “I… I’m sorry. But that doesn’t change the question, Gramma. I want to know what’s going on.”
    Dr. Miles gave Lisa an icy glare. “What’s going on is this: Everyone here is under a great deal of pressure because I put us into a difficult situation. Your father has waited years to have this chance to write. Now that he does have it, he’s terribly worried about whether or not he can actually do it. Your mother is dealing with the fact that she is forty-some years old and has never developed a career. She sees Carrie becoming independent and knows she won’t really be needed much longer. Spending the summer in the same house with a pair of professors like your father and me only makes things that much harder on her. She doesn’t like being the only adult here without a paying occupation. Of course, that was her choice. I urged her to complete school. But she was as headstrong as I am. Sometimes I think she dropped out of college just to rebel against me.”
    Lisa stared. This kind of truth about the family was not at all what she had been after.
    â€œOf course, I’m slowly losing my mind because I can’t stand being retired,” continued Dr. Miles. “And you just plain don’t want to be here. Carrie’s the only one without a reason to be upset, and I imagine the rest of us are in such a state we’re making life miserable for her, too. So. You want to know what’s going on? There are five people in this house under a lot of strain and they’re starting to show some psychic manifestations of it. Or do you think we’re actually receiving visits from the spirit world?”
    The tone in which she asked the question made the possibility seem so utterly ridiculous that Lisa found herself wondering if that really was what she believed after all.
    â€œI don’t know,” she said at last.