A Stir of Echoes Read Online Free PDF

lives somewhere-or did live somewhere. She's someone you've known or seen-or maybe haven't seen; that isn't necessary. The point is, what you saw wasn't a ghost. Not in the usual sense of the word anyway-though plenty of so-called ghosts would fit into this category."
      "Which is?" I asked.
      "Telepathic images," Phil said. "If one person can see a card with a symbol on it, another person can see what looks like a human being. I mean see it. Your mind was keyed up high because of our little experiment last night. You saw this woman. Naturally, the first thing you thought of was ghost. That's the trouble with our attitude-not just yours, Tom.
      "People won't believe in reasonable, verifiable phenomena-things like hypnotism, telepathy, clairvoyance. No, that they won't accept. But they see something and, in a second-whammo!-they're off the edge, flying high. Because they're not prepared, because they can only react with instinctive emotion. They won't accept reasonable things with their minds but the fantastic things they'll swallow whole when their emotions are brought into play. Because the emotions have no limits on belief. The emotions will swallow anything-and they do. As witness yourself. You're an intelligent man, Tom. But the only thing you thought of was ghost."
      He paused and Anne and I stared at him. He'd sounded just like Alan Porter.
    "The end," he said, grinning. "Pass the basket."
      "So you don't think I saw it then," I said.
      "You did see it," he answered, "but in your mind's eye. And, believe me, brother man, seeing it that way can be just as realistic to you as seeing it the ordinary way. Sometimes a lot more realistic."
      He grinned. "Hell, man," he said, "you were a medium last night."
      We talked about it some more. I didn't have much to offer, though-except objections. It's a little hard to let go of a thing like that. Maybe the human reaction is to cling to it a little. As Phil had indicated, it's a lot more "romantic" to see a ghost. Not so really thrilling to write it off as "mere" telepathy.
      It was Anne who broke it up.
      "Well, we're doing a lot of talking about this," she said with her true woman's mind, "but we're missing the whole point. What I want to know is-who was this woman?"
      Phil and I both had to laugh at the combination of curiosity and wifely suspicion in her voice.
      "Who else?" Phil said. "One of his girl friends."
      I shook my head.
      "I wish I knew," I said, "but I can't remember ever seeing her." I shrugged. "Maybe it was-what's her name?-Helen Driscoll."
      "Whoozat, whoozat?" Phil asked.
      "She's the woman who used to live in this house," Anne told him. "She's Mrs. Sentas' sister; the woman who lives next door."
      "Oh." Phil shrugged. "Could be."
      "So I saw the ghost of Helen Driscoll," I said, straight-faced.
      "Except for one little thing," Anne said.
      "What?" Phil asked.
      "She's not dead. She just went back east."
      "Not west," said Phil.
      The headache got worse. So much worse that I had to beg off going to the beach that afternoon. I made them go without me; told Anne not to worry, I'd take an aspirin and lie down until the headache went away.
      They went a few minutes past two, piling into Phil's coupe with basket, blanket, beach bag, lotions, et al. I stood on the porch waving to Richard as the Mercury gunned up Tulley Street. Like so many young men Phil liked to be doing about fifty before he shifted into third.
      I watched until the car turned left onto the boulevard; then I went back inside the house. As I started to close the door I saw Elizabeth out on her lawn again, white gloved, poking a trowel at the garden soil. She had on a wide-brimmed straw hat that she and Frank had bought in Tijuana. She didn't look over at me. I stood there a moment watching her slow, tired movements. The term "professional martyr" occurred to me and I put it off as unworthy.
      I shut the sight of her away