Part 4

Hansen closed his, eyes, took a deep breath and whispered a prayer. Before starting to read he tried to visualize the writer - a little girl with pig tails in a lacy pink dress playing with a rag doll in a sylvan setting long since vanished.

            Almost immediately the entries in this crumbling bound journal troubled him. He knew the important material would be found at the end, but he felt compelled to acquaint himself with the young woman's history. Unfortunately, Gladys Timms, whose maiden name he could not discern, proved to be an enigma.

            In a very neat, practiced style the youthful Gladys recorded nothing that one might expect a girl to hold dear, no reference to parents, siblings, friends, pets, beloved toys, memorable trips - nothing. Instead, he read a threadbare description of her home in a northern county on a quiet street with a large oak tree on the front lawn, how a bad storm tore limbs off the tree, but it survived. Gladys enjoyed her walks to school past a brook that frequently overflowed its banks. She loved history, but hated math . . .

            Hansen closed the journal for a moment and frowned. He decided to skip over the early pages and focus on her later life. To his surprise he found seven blank sheets between her last entry as a young girl and the beginning of her married life with the Right Reverend Wolfgang Timms. Why? he wondered.

            Again, the journal contained no description of her wedding day or any reference to early marital bliss. It began with trouble and quickly descended through grief and ultimately into despair.

            These have been the four loneliest years of my life, she wrote in the same self-consciously neat style, complete with misspellings - every paragraph on a different page and day. This man I thout would be my frend and menter has proved to be my werst enemy. From the first he seemed to hate me. He never smiles and treets me with such meenness!

            Now I am not only hart sick, but my body seems to have fallen victum to contajin. Lately, I have felt so weak I can barely rise from my bed. Thank the Lord for Constance, whose trustwerthy ministratons have kept me from falling sicker in both thout and form. Is that pity I see in her eyes? She tries so hard to lift my spirits, but it seems she has resined herself to failer before she utters a word. What does she know that she is not telling me?

            The whisperings that drift from below add to my werry. Am I neering the end of my erthly life? But the tone of their words bespeaks stelth, not sorrow - and the woman's voice is not Connie's.

            Lately, the Reverend ("the Reverend"!?) has atempted to comfert me. He insists on bringing me soup of his own creaton. I feel it is so dissrespectfull to write that inventing recipees is not his nateral talent. How bitter is the concokshin! He has now taken as his duty to raze the windows and swing wide the shudders at nite as a gester of his love, he says. The fresh air will sweep away the vapers, he says. How cold my room becomes at nite!

            A few days ago a north wind filled the room, pushing its chill under my bedding and taking hold of my hart. I sens a presents in the air that waches me expektintly. I sens it smiling - or sneering. I reech out to it and sometimes it rushes to my embrace. Sometimes it backs away.

            The laffter from below ways upon me as hevily now as my strange illness. Does no one see this is wrong? Will no one speek to the Reverend? Your loyal wife is dying in your very house, in the room rite above you! And you find space in your hart to laff - with a stranger - or is it a stranger?

            As my body weekens my senses sharpen. I can here better then they know. I think it is the Widow Hortense Montcrief I here, the one who joined our church after her husband's sudden death- young, suple, tempting - a danger to all womenfoke, but now most espeshully to me.

            That presence has become my frend, my companon. It comferts me in hushed tones - understanding - enceraging rather than condemming my anger. My limms are too week to move, but my hart still pownds with rage. It feeds my soul, soothing me when I am most awash in fury and hatred. It asks to become part of me, to take hold of my very being. It fills me with misgiving, but I need a frend! Connie is alowed entry so rarely now and she always seems on the verge of teers. Surely, she knows something and is not telling me. Finally, we share our suspishins - and they are the same! What can she do? a faithful farmers wife whos frends are all in our church, who even if they beleeved would be too afraid to confront the Reverend.

            This is monstrus! and my secret companyun agrees. Last nite I reched onto my bedcloths and saw blood. The end is near.

            My companyun seems to drink of my despare, ganing strenkth from it. What is this thing I have taken into my sole? It thretens to imprison me after my body fails!

            That was the last entry. Hansen sat back and stared for long minutes at the file cabinets, certain of his conclusion and embittered by it.

            The diary was a fake.

            "Are you sure?" Janet pressed, resigned now to the fact that her reading time was over for the evening.

            "Completely, thoroughly, one hundred percent." Hansen slipped into bed beside her, leaned back against the headboard and crossed his legs.

            Janet waited.

            "The evidence is inarguable," he continued. "First, the name on the cover - Gladys Timms. I examined that cover with a magnifying glass and that is the only name ever written there. No earlier name had been erased and replaced with Timms. I doubt she was married at the age of five, or whenever the diary began."

            "Maybe her maiden name was Timms," Janet offered, not really believing it.

            "I thought of that. It's possible but a real long shot. Besides there's plenty more. Then there's the handwriting. It is exactly the same her entire life, as a child and as an adult. Have you ever dug out an old paper from grammar school and been struck by how much your handwriting has changed over the years?"

            "Yup," Janet answered, sharing his disappointment over what was now an obvious conclusion.

            "So that diary, which we are supposed to believe covered decades, was really written in a matter of months. Then there are the blank pages. Who leaves seven blank pages in the middle of a diary? One page might make sense if a lot of time has passed, but seven? Something's strange there - and then finally there's the fact that she's so sick she can barely move her limbs, but she's able to write in a clear, neat style."

            Janet sighed. "I think you're right, Terry, and I'm sorry. I know you were hoping for answers, but it looks like you wasted your time."

            "I still have these nagging thoughts, though, that it's not over in spite of the bogus diary." He rose from the bed and walked to the window that looked over the old parsonage. "I checked the church records while I was at the seminary and discovered that Constance Sharp died a little over a month after she submitted the diary to the archives. Why would a woman, who might have known she was dying, make a difficult thirty mile trip to drop off a fake document?"

            "Right!" Janet leaned forward, fully engaged now. "I forgot. They didn't travel by car in 1850. That was a long trip. She had to be determined to see that diary preserved!"

            "Either she took the barge up the canal, a stage coach, or rode horse back - harsh, even dangerous traveling conditions for a mortally sick woman." Hansen started to pace back and forth across the room.

            "Maybe she didn't know the diary was a fake," Janet offered

            "Maybe, but she had to know what it contained for her to be so committed to its preservation."

            "Then there are the blank pages," Janet added breathlessly, "and the same handwriting!"

            It was starting to come together. They were getting close.

            Finally, they said it together. "SHE WROTE IT HERSELF!"

            "Gladys might have been too weak to write, but she wasn't too weak to whisper," Hansen continued eagerly.

            "Plus Constance must have had some inkling of what was going on. Otherwise Gladys' testimony would have seemed like the ramblings of a failing mind." Janet's voice rose with excitement."

            Hansen plopped down on the foot of the bed, almost bouncing off onto the floor. "She can't tell anybody, because 'THE REVEREND' has too much clout. She could be ostracized from the community for suggesting such things."

            "So she tries to create compelling evidence, but she really doesn't have the skill to pull it off. She knows nothing of Gladys' life, so she has to invent one."

            "She records the critical part of the story toward the end of the book, while her memory of it is still clear and then tries to fill in earlier detail to make it seem authentic."

            "But she lacks the imagination - and maybe the time, if she's dying."

            Once again, they said it together, "She falls seven pages short."

            Hansen bowed his head. "So that rotten old so and so poisoned his wife."

            "And if I'm not mistaken about the lore of our church," Janet continued, "didn't his marriage less than a year later raise some eyebrows?"

            "Right! And I suspect when we check the church records we'll find that the new Mrs. Timms was one Hortense Montcrief."

            Janet's tone dropped to a virtual whisper. "Do you think that's why Gladys won't let go? Why she chooses to haunt the old parsonage rather than vacating for the kingdom of God?"

            "If that's true, it renders suspect some basic biblical theology."

            They fell silent.

            "The only thing that works," Hansen began haltingly, "the only possible explanation that's not covered by scripture is that her companion has truly imprisoned her like her diary said. Constance got that part of the story right. Her companion, being a demon, possessed her soul."

            "Which means she wasn't a believer," Janet said sadly. "But with a husband like that who could blame her?"

            Still troubled, Hansen ran both hands through his hair. "But that feeling I had in Chucky's room confuses everything. It felt like the stronger dark power, the malevolent personality was trying to cast off the weaker despairing one, but it wouldn't let go, like Gladys' companion was trying to push her away, but she was having none of it. Why?"

            "Maybe there's some truth to movies and TV. Maybe she's staying because of unresolved matters. She wants to have her story told and won't leave until it is."

            "Why would somebody put off heaven after a hundred and sixty years for something so comparatively trivial? When all is said and done Wolfgang Timms got his just desserts on the day he died, so vengeance was achieved. She must know that. There must be something else."

            After a minute of silence, Janet finally said, "Let's go to sleep," and turned off the light.

            Hansen lay awake for almost an hour, running various scenarios through his mind, but finding none satisfactory. Shortly after midnight sleep claimed him.

            At three fifteen he bolted upright, his heart pounding with excitement-dread-horror-revelation. He reached over and with both arms shook his wife clumsily. "Janet! Wake up! It's about Gladys! Wake up!"

            Janet sprang awake, her eyes wide with terror. "What is it, Terry! For God's sake!"

            "It's about Gladys, Janet! I know! I finally understand why she won't leave!"

            She could barely discern his face in the darkened room, but saw enough to shudder at his expression of awe.

            "She's trying to protect the boy!" he gasped.

Watch for the Conclusion of "The Ghost Next Door" in two weeks.