his non-existent pulse quickened. These sensations where she was concerned were disconcerting to say the least. Still, he did his best to smile back.
“Wow,” she said as she set the lantern on the table and sat down. “This place really rocks once the sun goes down.” Meredith scanned the interior, pausing on different scenes unfolding around them. Her brow rose. “I’ve never experienced anything like this. It’s like watching an old western movie in black and white.”
Not knowing what an old western movie might be, he said nothing. Instead, he drank in the vision before him, all the while resisting the imperative to move closer to her warmth. What did she smell like? Sweet, no doubt, like the wildflowers that bloomed in the fields of Ireland.
Her gaze came to rest on him. “They’re ignoring me, which is also a first. By now I’m usually surrounded and inundated with pleas for help.”
“That is my doing.” He took his seat again. “I asked that they leave us be this one night.” He studied her, his curiosity piqued. “How do you hear me when I’ve no voice? What is it like for you?”
“I hear your words as whispers inside my head. I can’t really explain how that happens or why, because I don’t really know. My older sister, father and aunt can also commune with the dead. We’ve often worked together to help spirits move on. We’re ghost whisperers; it’s a family thing.” She bit her lip and her brow creased as she once again surveyed the goings on inside the saloon.
“I’ve never met a spirit so aware of their own ghostly state as you seem to be.” Meredith folded her hands and rested them on the table, and her attention returned to him. “Maybe if you tell me more about how you came to be here in Garretsville, your story might help me figure out how best to help you cross.”
“Gladly, and I sincerely hope the telling will help.” He heaved his ghostly version of a sigh. “You’ve heard of Ireland’s Great Potato Famine of ’45, aye?”
“You mean 1845? Yes I have. From what I understand, that particular famine mostly affected the poorest families, those who subsisted on tenant farms or held the lowliest jobs.”
“Aye, that is so, and it fell to those of us who were better off to aid the starving as best we could. During the terrible years of the potato blight, the British continued to export our much needed grains rather than help alleviate the suffering taking place right under their noses. Thousands upon thousands died while the British profited from Irish crops planted in Irish soil and tended by the very laborers who were starving to death.” Once again anger consumed him, and if he’d had solid teeth, he’d be gnashing them.
“My family were among the more fortunate. We owned a farm in County Meath along the banks of the River Boyne. Ours was the prettiest farm you ever did see, and there I lived with my mam, dad, younger brother, and two younger sisters.” The anguish of not knowing what had become of his remaining family tortured him. Dead for as long as he’d been, the memory of his mother’s tears the day he’d boarded the ship to America still haunted him. Oh the irony—he was a haunted ghost.
“Go on,” Meredith encouraged.
“We had plenty at a time when many of our neighbors suffered starvation. We did what we could, shared what we could. What you might not know is that famine’s bosom companion is disease. Typhus and smallpox swept through Ireland, making no distinction between the classes and killing the well-fed along with the starving.” He paused as memories of the horrors he’d seen came back to him.
“Visiting our neighbors as often as we did, we were exposed to smallpox, and all but my mother took ill. We lost my father and my baby sister. I almost died as well. My brother had just turned nine, and my remaining sister was but four. Between tending to us and the livestock, my mother could do little on her own to keep the farm going. She sold off or butchered most of our livestock to feed us and to make ends meet. Our fields lay fallow, and by the time the blight ended, we were in poor shape indeed. In 1849 I was well enough to farm again, but by then it was too late.”