“Good morning,” I called, setting the wheelbarrow down.
He continued forward. “Good morning,” he said. “I-I was coming to check on you. I hope that’s okay. We don’t have power and Aunt Sam said I should make sure your generator was working.”
His voice sounded nervous, like he was doing something he didn’t think he was supposed to.
“That was nice of you, and her. Yes, our generator is working. Please tell her she’s welcome to put any of her food in our refrigerator or freezer. She does that if the power’s out for a while.”
“Oh, okay, I’ll tell her … I’ll leave now,” he said, his voice still nervous.
“Luca,” I said, “you don’t have to leave. You can, but you don’t have to.”
He stepped toward me, his face distressed. “It’s just … we didn’t leave things very good between us the other day. I mean, not yesterday with, with Thomas, the day before.” His voice trailed off like he was afraid to say more.
“You mean when you told me you see dead people and demons are hunting my family,” I said, watching him closely.
“I’m sorry I said those things,” he said, now standing in front of me.
“Were they lies?” I said.
He shook his head.
“You’re sorry you were honest with me?” I said.
“It doesn’t matter why I said them. It wasn’t right to do,” he said. “You and your family have been very kind to me. I shouldn’t have scared you.”
“Luca, I don’t want you to lie to me,” I said, though I wished his truth didn’t involve ghosts or demons.
He turned his head toward the wheelbarrow piled with wood, his fingers picking at the loose bark on one of the pieces. He said, “Can I push this up to the house for you?”
“You don’t have to,” I said, though I didn’t particularly want to push the wheelbarrow up the hill.
“I’d like to, if that’s okay.” He placed his hands cautiously on the handles.
“That would be nice, thank you.”
He lifted the handles and began pushing the wheelbarrow. I walked a couple paces behind him. The chickens were clucking happily as they pulled worms from the drenched earth.
As we drew nearer to my house I spoke. “I saw it.”
His pace slowed.
“I saw the handprint,” I said. “At first, I thought you made it.”
His shoulders slumped, my disbelief apparently causing him pain.
“Then I realized the print was melted into the stone and there was no way for you to do that.”
“I didn’t make it,” he said quietly, as if confessing something.
“But you witnessed it being made?” I said.
“Yes,” he said with hesitation as he started pushing the wheelbarrow again.
“Will you …”—I cleared my throat—“will you tell me about it?”
He turned to face me, his eyes boring into mine. The intensity of his gaze made me want to turn away, I forced my eyes to stay on his. Finally, he released my gaze and I took a breath.
“It was on the second night that I saw them,” he said, barely loud enough for me to hear him over the wind and the generator. “There were three that night.”
“How … how many are there most nights?” I asked, keeping my voice even.
“Every night is different,” he said, relaxing a little, as if he was starting to believe I wasn’t going to call him a liar. “It almost—” He stopped.
“Go on,” I said.
He swallowed and said, “It’s almost as if it depends on the person, or, or the ghost, I mean. Each one stays for a different amount of time.”
“What do they do while they’re here?” I asked cautiously.
“They listen, or at least that’s what it looks like they’re doing.”
“At the place where the handprint is?”
He nodded. “After the first night, when I saw the little girl and old man, then the next night was when I saw the boy who made the handprint.”
“A boy?”
“He was younger than us, but older than Lisieux, I’m guessing. He was the third person or spirit that night. The first was a man. He appeared and walked up the slope, stood by your wall, waiting, and then lifted his head with an expression of total joy on his face. He disappeared. A few seconds later a woman appeared and did the same thing, except she knelt as she waited. Last came the boy. He was older than the other two. I mean, his clothes were from a long time ago. The other two wore clothes that looked pretty normal for today. But the boy’s were from a different time. He was the most excited of any I have seen so far.”
Luca’s voice became light and happy as he spoke of the boy. “He ran up the slope and stood there,” he said, pointing to the side of my house. “He was bouncing up and down. At the last moment, he pressed his hand against the wall, then he grinned the biggest grin, and leaped into the air and disappeared.” Luca was practically laughing as he spoke, the memory was such a happy one.
“That’s when you found the handprint?” I asked.
“No, the next day,” he said. “I woke up thinking about wanting to see the wall. I didn’t have a reason to be near your house. So I told myself I was going for a walk.”
“A walk to the side of my house?” I said kindly.
“Yeah, I felt bad for sneaking around by your house. Once I found the print, I understood why I was drawn to the spot.”
“You felt bad about that, but not about watching my house every night?” I said.
His shoulders fell, and I instantly regretted my question. “Forget I said that.”
“No, you have every right to ask,” he said with an edge of self-loathing. “I tell myself I stay out of your actual backyard and I’m not watching your house, just the souls around it. But that doesn’t matter. It’s still creepy.”
“It looks creepy,” I said, “but it’s not. Well, not in the way it seems at first. I guess it’s actually more creepy since you’re watching dead people roam around my house,” I said, trying to make a joke.
“That’s just it. That part isn’t creepy. It was at first, not anymore. Those people aren’t …. There’s nothing scary about them. They are all really happy to be there. They aren’t evil in the slightest. They are joyful, grateful, even, for whatever your family is doing. Praying, I guess.”
We were silent as we went around the side of my house and entered the garage.
“The wood will dry out good in here,” he said as I led him to what remained of the wood pile that occupied a wall of the third bay, the one we used as more of a shed and less of a garage.
I placed the egg basket on the floor and together we began unloading the wheelbarrow.
When it was almost empty, I said, “After we do our individual prayers, we pray the Rosary and we always dedicate it to the souls in purgatory.”
“Purgatory?”
“It’s a spiritual state. The souls aren’t in heaven yet, though they have chosen God, so they are holy souls. Nothing evil about them. This might explain why you aren’t afraid of them. There are stories about purgatory being a place of purifying fire, burning away sins and imperfections so the soul is worthy of being in God’s presence.”