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    Guiding Spirit
    Guiding Spirit
    Guiding Spirit
    Ebook165 pages2 hours

    Guiding Spirit

    By Robert Kanehl

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Love does not end with death or at the gravesite. It lingers in this world, as powerful after death as before. Ashley Dunlap and David Paine discover this first hand, as a benevolent spirit guides their lives toward its desires. Will the two follow this spirit’s pathway or rebel against its power to follow their own free will? This spirit of a murdered family member hovers over the two youths, providing timely nudges and direct pushes toward chance meetings and shared experiences. Her influence twists and turns their earthbound lives into a series of meetings and departures until the helix of their family history finally completes its cycle.
    Eternal rest for the spirit of Alice Svenson hinges on the completion of her mission to assist these two young people down the correct, unseen path. Alice’s guidance is not always welcomed, and brings forth anger and wrath on her part, as well as that of Ashley and David. Can there be a happily ever after for these two?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWrite Words Inc.
    Release dateApr 16, 2016
    ISBN9781613863527
    Guiding Spirit

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      Book preview

      Guiding Spirit - Robert Kanehl

      1

      Guiding Spirit

      by Robert Kanehl

      © 2015 Robert Kanehl. All Rights Reserved

      First ebooksonthe.net Edition, June, 2015

      Published at Smashwords by Write Words, Inc

      ISBN 978-1-61386-352-7

      Prologue

      Sir Isaac Newton states that an object in motion will stay in motion unless an outside force works on it. The same is true of human lives. They will travel down parallel paths unaware of each other unless a chance happening diverts them. What follows is a ghost of a romance in which two people, traveling very close parallel lifelines, brush an outside spirit spiraling them into a collision.

      Newspaper clippings

      found in the journals

      From the Connecticut Daily Messenger:

      Warrenville— Tragedy has reached into the heart of Warrenville today, as the youngest son of the late Otto Svenson murdered his mother, sister, and sister-in-law before taking his own life.

      Police have little to explain the triple murder-suicide other than the fact that the youngest son had been undergoing treatment for a mental illness that he had been suffering since entering high school.

      From the Connecticut Daily Messenger:

      Warrenville— Naval Lieutenant Junior Grade Jonathan S. Dunlap has been deployed to Vietnam. The son of Arthur and Emily Dunlap of Crescent Street is serving on board the USS Intrepid. He is a graduate of Warrenville High School and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.

      Chapter 1

      Ashley...Journal entry

      If I knew then what I know now, my whole life would be different. My whole world would be different, because of this knowledge. However, I didn’t know, my parents didn’t know, and so I had to fall into the trap set by the spirits.

      I was born in California while my father was serving in the Navy. Soon after, he would fight in Vietnam, which was a war when I was little that filled the nation with despair and confusion. Many young men went to the war, and many did not return. Father understood that, so he sent my mother back to his hometown with me, so that we would have friends and family around us just in case.

      Because of that, at age five I, Ashley Elizabeth Dunlap, returned to the small New England town where father had grown up. New England, I did not know that meant snow, and cold, and a religious school. These were not the Californian ways of the 1960s.

      Grandmother was excited to have us back. I can recall that. She met us at the train station in Hartford, Connecticut when we arrived. Her smile was one of the first things I remembered of Connecticut, and her hug that smelled of lavender and mothballs. It had turned cold, and my grandma had just removed her winter coat from storage. The smell of mothballs would always trigger the memory of coming to Connecticut. Even today, nearly fifty years later, I can’t help but see her face and wisp of vapor when she spoke.

      So this is Ashley, she said, hugging me. It is so nice to meet you. She had been out to California when I had been born, but I did not remember that. She had also been down to Georgia when I was three, to see my sister Victoria Emily born, but I did not remember that either. In the meantime, we had not met. But her hug was genuine, filled with warmth that cut through the weather, and made me smile.

      Her fur-lined light blue coat made her grayish hair almost disappear. I knew she was old, but could not tell it by her clothes or her face. Her smile gleamed off her round face, made rounder by the grayish fur hat that set carefully on her head.

      The car’s over there. She looked at Mom and pointed with her chin toward the parking lot visible from the train platform. We’ll have one of the porters bring your bags.

      There’s only two, Mother said. We’re shipping everything else. It should arrive soon. Looking toward the baggage car, she added, I’ll go get them.

      Alone at last with Grandmother, I did not know what to say. I didn’t care to say anything, just watch. I liked to watch people and things. It gave me time to think before I talked. You can learn a lot from people if you watch them. Grandma was a Santa Claus personality. Not only was she short and round, but she carried gifts.

      Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a roll of lifesavers, assorted flavors, as if she had been reading my mind.

      I bet your mouth tastes funny after riding on the train so long.

      I nodded.

      Well then have a lifesaver. She rolled back the paper revealing a red candy. Thank goodness it’s cherry, she said. I just hate those pineapple ones, I bet you do too.

      She looked at me and I nodded. And you would have made me eat it too. Laughter erupted from both of us.

      I nodded. I knew right then that she and I would be good friends. I placed the hard sweet candy in my mouth and allowed the taste to swirl around before swallowing it.

      People hurried by, so many people I could not count them. All of them just hurried past, not caring for me or the taste of cherry that filled my mouth. What did they know of delight? I looked at my grandma, and at my pretty, new pink coat. So this was Connecticut, I thought and smiled.

      * * *

      I was wearing the same pink, fur-collared coat I had on at the train station, when I experienced the second most memorable memory as a 5-year-old. A few weeks went past and I missed father. But he did not come home at night since we traveled to Connecticut. I didn’t know he was half the world away. I only missed him. Victoria Jane my little sister missed him too, but didn’t say anything about it. She just drooled, mumbled, and screamed at her stuffed toys.

      Grandma had come into the room earlier and told me to put on my best dress, and wear my pink coat. I loved that coat it made me feel so grown-up. We piled into Grandpa’s large station wagon and drove to church. It was not the first time I had been to church, but it was one of the first times, and the first time in Connecticut.

      I remember so well, the building didn’t look like a church at all. It was a house, a gray and white house, with a large porch and long tall windows. I joined a group of children in a small room with a wall of those windows. I had never seen anything like them. Designed like the small windows in my grandma’s house, they were larger. Wooden framework held plates of glass almost as tall as me.

      I stood in one window, looking out over the wooden boards of the porch as the world looked in. Old people walked by, some smiled at me, some just passed without seeing. That’s how it is with a 5-year-old. Either you were seen, maybe greeted, or you were overlooked.

      Two older women were in the room with the children, one offered us cookies, and the other talked about Jesus and Mary. It was a story I had heard before, so I didn’t really pay any attention to it. I just looked out the windows. The windows that were taller than me, taller than even my father, I thought.

      Suddenly a face met mine. It was a young adult woman, younger than my mother was, with long flowing dark hair and blue eyes. She looked into the window as I looked out. Her face was pale. I could feel a sadness that came from her eyes . I almost wanted to cry. Then she smiled, and when I smiled back, the sadness disappeared in a moment.

      She laughed and I laughed, too.

      Ashley? the woman handing out the cookies called over to me. I didn’t think the story about Mary’s giving up her only son for us was funny. I looked over at her, because polite girls always look at people who are talking to them.

      No ma’am, I said. I was laughing at her. I pointed over my shoulder at the woman in the window.

      Who? the teacher asked.

      Her, I said looking back, but there was no one there.

      I felt cold and pulled my pink coat tight around my shoulders.

      * * *

      I didn’t see that woman again during the day at church. But I did see her that night. I woke up in bed, suddenly aware of the laughter coming from the living room just below me. Music crept through the floor as well. I laid there listening, looking at the ceiling, hearing my sister breathing loudly in her sleep. Warmth came over me, and I smiled, almost laughed.

      Ashley, a woman’s voice whispered. Ashley, are you awake? I rolled over and saw her, the same woman from the church window, looking at me from the doorway. The light from the staircase arched around her, making her appear and disappear depending on where she stood. Her face was the only thing I could see in the shadows. It hovered in between the dark and the light.

      Fear grabbed me, but then she spoke the words I prayed each night. Get up. Your father just came home.

      Daddy! I cried, and jumped out of bed. Daddy, I called, and heard his laugh, his wonderful, loved-filled laugh. Running toward the sound, I pushed by the woman and did not stop until I had jumped into his arms. After kissing him, over and over, feeling his beard stubble, and smelling his coffee breath, I cried.

      Big tears of joy fell from my eyes.

      Oh pumpkin, he said, holding me close. Did we wake you?

      No, she did. I looked over my shoulder expecting to see the woman. But only my grandparents and my mom were in the room.

      My father’s coffee breath stung my noise as he asked, Who?

      The lady you sent up to get me.

      What lady? my mother asked.

      The one from the church, I explained, looking back toward the empty doorway.

      The one from the church? she asked.

      She was outside the window today, looking in, I said.

      What church? my father asked, a concern in his voice I had only heard when I did something wrong.

      The Baptist Church, Grandma said, defiantly. We took her to the church today.

      Why?

      To show everyone there that there is no history left in the building, Grandma explained quietly. Her tone signaled that she had chosen her words carefully.

      I knew that tone. Grown-ups used it when there were children around who might mistake a word for something totally different from their meanings, or if there was a subject, they did not want to talk about in front of the children.

      Rage, no fear, covered my father’s face. It was the only time that I had even seen him with fear. His eyes darted between my grandparents, and I could tell he was remembering something. It would take me years to find out that it was a vision that haunted him. A vision of blood, and screams. It was a memory more of sound than sight.

      But we had agreed that I would tell her, he spoke to my grandparents.

      You will, Grandma responded. We went there to show the others that there was no bad history with the site. She crossed close to my father and touched his hand, the same hand holding me in a tight embrace.

      After they bought the house, they feared that no one would use it with the stain there, if we did not come. You see we had to go. We had to allow the church to establish a rebirth of the site. They’re using it for Sunday school, and children will bring peace there.

      Blood and screams filled my father’s mind, but the fear eased from his eyes a little. Grandma stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on his cheek. She stepped back and met his eyes. You know that there could be nothing worse than to let it remain vacant after all these years.

      Father nodded and hugged me tighter. Pumpkin, I am so glad to see you. He kissed me again. Let’s forget about the woman, whoever she is.

      He paused and I stared into his eyes. The fear there sunk deep within me. If he were scared of that lady, I would be too. If he wanted her out of our lives, I would try the best a 5-year-old could to make it so.

      "I’m just so glad

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