The Lady in black, part 5 ... 
Her emotions, her thoughts seemed to fill up my consciousness. I felt sad, very sad overwhelmed with melancholy and grief. Just like what she had been feeling. Now I could judge the reason why. She wanted to lead a normal life. Just like any other women of her time.
She wanted children, perhaps two boys and two girls. Descendents to carry on her family name and to cherish the vast lands and wealth she inherited. She would raise the boys to become men and she would teach her daughters the ways of the world. She even prayed to God for twins. That would be a very simple wish to make her happy. Her father a noble man too had given this house to them as dowry. She wanted to fill her house with her childrens’ laughter and their tantrums. She knew she would be beautiful and active as ever again, even after giving birth. She trusted her corset and her will to remain beautiful.
She needed Samuel to realize her dreams. Samuel a spoilt man had no desire or inclination for a family that Lady Elizabeth Washington desired. He thought he was filthy rich. According to him a harem of concubines meant a status symbol and so was the addiction of expensive alcohol that impressed his companions from a rather lowly society.
She detested the stench of alcohol; she hated her husband’s drunken stupor. She wanted him to be a gentleman. A loving husband and a model father but he was all different than she wanted him to be, he was nothing less than a common drunkard.
While the history of thoughts and events had been going on her mind and mine; everyone among my team knew I was in a psychic connection with the ghost of Lady Elizabeth Washington hence nobody did anything that would prove to be a distraction, they knew this too well from their past experiences with me under similar circumstances; except for Sam who was scared to death and had never seen her so clearly. His fear kept him silent.
My reverie broke when a shocking revelation came to me. The house Sam owned was built on the land that once belonged to the Washington family. The house plan, the architecture was exactly similar to Lady Elizabeth Washington’s house.
She sensed the change in my thoughts too. She said, “All I remember is I had thrown a ball for my friends and family. I wanted to cleanse the house and my marriage of this drudgery. I had invited every one. There were men, women and children in the party. The knaves saw to every one’s needs.
That day... just for that day, I did not want Samuel to drink.... I was in this room trying to destroy all his liquor; I was fed up with his drunken acts... I decided to change him... if he did not change I would leave him and I started to pack my things but he came home unexpectedly. He was furious to see what I had done to his alcohols.... I had poured most of his wine down the drain. He was so furious that he poured all the left over’s on me and shoved me into a closet poured more liquor on it too... then he set the closet on fire....with me in it,” she turned at Sam, “He did it to me on this day.”
It was just by chance that Sam and Elle had decided to keep their good old closet at the exact same place where the other one in which Lady Washington had died. It was just by chance that part that they (Sam and Elle) had thrown resembled the occasion the day Lady Washington died.
“You mean, October 19, 1855?” I said. I was armed with Shelly’s research1.
“Yes... Sir,” she replied. She could not pronounce my name.
I broke the reality gently to her, “My Lady... he (pointing at Sam) is not your husband, Sir Samuel Washington,... he is Sam. Your husband died in the same fire that burnt your house and you. After he shoved you into the closet yes he did set fire to it”, I said, “But the fire went out of control... I know, my Lady he killed you. But it is fate it seems, he too died in that same fire that burnt your house down and that was more than two hundred years ago.”
“But this man,” she pointed at Samuel. Pointing a finger at a someone was not considered Lady like in her time, I understood, she was too angry and delirious with rage to consider that, she continued, “this man mentions my name- Elle”
My psychic connection with her dawned many other amazing facts; it was a sheer coincidence that Sam’s wife shared the same first name and nickname with her. Whenever Sam required, he addressed his wife as ‘Elle’. He never realized the position of the closet, the party and the nick name he gave his wife would belong to a noble Lady who lived two hundred years ago and that Sam was none other than Sir Samuel Washington, reborn.
My thoughts my senses resonated with hers. She seemed to remember everything now, I could sense it. The Lady in Black had waited more than two hundred years trapped between the worlds; only for revenge. Arrival of Sam into the house and the chain of events that followed after Sam moved in this new house that the promoters had built on the lines of the past had woken her spirit from an eternal sleep.
“My Lady, I know what you know now..., My friend Sam is not your husband. He has a family. He is a husband to a wife and he is father to a daughter. It is a different time and a different reality. In his previous life Sam or rather, Sir Samuel Washington was your husband and as you and I both know he was not a nice man.” I paused, then I continued, “He is a good man now, my Lady, It is a different time all together.”
All of us could see tears in her eyes. Her apparition became fainter and fainter the truth had given her much peace. She had learnt her revenge was also fulfilled. She has nothing left in this world now I could sense a feeling of calm in her soul as her apparition grew very faint and then it vanished. Sam and I breathed a sigh of relief.
My team had everything on tape. They started to pack, I felt pity for Lady in Black she did not deserve the life she led and died.
Now it was safe for Sam’s wife to enter the house along with Sandra, the first thing she said was, “Wow! Its gone!”, To her it was evident whatever curse loomed over the property had now been lifted.
I too realized that the uncanny gloom that had descended on the house was now gone as now Elizabeth Washington’s spirit finally found peace.
1. See Lady in Black, part 4
All rights reserved © Sudip K Ghosh aka *~Anecentric