along those lines.”
“Well, first of all, despite what you believe, I think a report should attest spirits do in fact, exist among us. There are many credible people out there Jo, besides me, who’ve had experiences. And sometimes those experiences are shared by more than one credible person at a time.”
“Methinks you have a recent ‘for instance’ you’re dying to share. So, go ahead and tell me about it.” Jo could recite all of Carolyn’s personal stories from memory. As a young child in Oregon, she shared her home and communicated with a little boy spirit who continually looked for his mother. Then, she insisted, she encountered many spirits at various archeological sites. Guilt washed over her now, as she recalled the many times she accused Carolyn of hallucinating. After all, she never once caught sight of the little boy ghost herself.
“All right then, I will.” Carolyn took a framed photo off the side table and passed into her hands. “Do you remember my friend, Tamara?”
“Yes, I do.” Jo met Carolyn’s no-nonsense colleague several months earlier. The photo depicted a shot from her recent wedding. “They make a very handsome couple,” she said as she handed the photo back.
“Yes, well, that isn’t the point. A few weeks before their big day, they stopped off at the old Methodist Church, there on the outskirts of town, do you remember? We visited it once.”
“Yes, I remember the place, it’s quite lovely.”
“Uh-huh, and that’s where they chose to get married. Anyway, they wanted to discuss a few details concerning the ceremony with the minister. They were in his office, discussing those details when this beautiful organ music filtered into the office from the chapel. The minister seemed a bit perplexed because the lady who plays for the congregation left a few days earlier for a two-week vacation.
“Tamara said the woman’s ability impressed her, and she wanted to take a moment to compliment her. So, she and Glenn, that’s the name of her husband, and the minister walked down the hall and into the chapel. There at the organ, sat a woman dressed in nineteenth-century clothing. They could see the wall right through her spiritual form. She finished the hymn, turned toward them, smiled, and simply disappeared right before their eyes.”
“Oh,” Jo said, for lack of anything better to say.
“‘Oh,’ indeed. And that story, my dear, comes from three very respectable and credible people. No one would think to accuse them of mass hysteria, I assure you. Also, let us not forget, the large groups of people who have witnessed and then reported a Gettysburg battle re-enactment only to discover nobody scheduled one. You read accounts such as those in the paper quite often.”
“Seriously, Carolyn, do you think ghosts from two entire regiments still fight the Civil War? Do you realize just how many spirits would have to exist on that particular battlefield in order to accomplish such a feat? Or do you think they go and hang out in the bushes while waiting for the battle to begin yet again?”
Five men remaining in a familiar place seemed reasonable, but entire regiments on a single battlefield, fighting the same battle repeatedly, didn’t. What possible good would that do any of them?
“I don’t know,” she answered with a shrug. “Some men remain very loyal to their commander and would follow him into the very depths of hell and back again if he asked it of them. However, there are those who believe such a display is simply an imprint on time. A residual haunting is what they call it. By definition, this is a scene so traumatic, that it plays again and again. You know, like an old movie rerun.”
“Yes, I know about the theory of residual haunting. However, as you said, it’s more like a movie. The spirits aren’t really there,” Jo replied. “But what would compel a spirit to stay around in the first place? Why don’t they just pass on to wherever it is, they’re
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