The Ghost of Madison Avenue: A Novella by Nancy Bilyeau

Author:Nancy Bilyeau [Bilyeau, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2019-12-10T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Helen barely spoke to her family that night, making the excuse of yet another headache. Nor could she eat more than a few bites of food, her appetite vanished. At the first opportunity, she fled to her bedroom, where she crawled into bed and pulled the covers high without getting into her nightclothes first.

The girl was real—she had to be. It was unmistakably her walking on the grounds of the house with its owner, J. P. Morgan. But why then couldn’t they find her in the main library? Belle and Helen had searched it thoroughly, and Mr. Lawrence swore that a girl of her description never entered the building. How could she have gotten past him—or made her way up to the highest balcony?

The alternative: She was not real but a spirit, and her unearthly form was one that two people could see: Helen O’Neill and J. P. Morgan.

Tears squeezed from her eyes as Helen huddled under the covers. Who could she talk to—a priest in Confession? Ghosts were evil, perhaps even demonic, she’d been taught. She shrank from opening herself up to that. A family member? There was no one. Only two people had ever perceived the possibilities that existed within Helen. Her differences—what set her apart. Her mother … and her husband.

“Sean, can you help me?” she whispered. “I wish you could help me.”

Helen could imagine what he’d say, “Ah, darling, I’d love to help you. But what can we do about our wee problem? I’m dead and buried.”

With all that she had been through, she couldn’t hold back her memories, those she had learned to put in a corner and examine rarely.

Helen Connolly met Sean O’Neill when she was eighteen years old. It was at a St. Valentine’s party thrown at a dilapidated city dance hall in the Bronx, not in Morrisania but Woodlawn, another Irish stronghold. She’d never been to the place before. Frances, a young woman Helen worked with at the seamstress’s, Mrs. O’Malley’s, begged her to come, because Frances’s parents wouldn’t let her attend without a friend as chaperone, seeing there would be many boys eager for dances.

Helen wasn’t much for dancing, but she agreed. In fact she welcomed the invitation, as she did any opportunity to feel like other young women. It might have been her natural shyness, of being a small, self-contained member of a loud family. Or it might have been something else. While never being ostracized, she was far from popular. Something held people back. Helen heard other girls her age talking about things she didn’t know about, didn’t seem to be experiencing. She attracted no beaus and while other eighteen-year-olds were planning their weddings, Helen had only her job at Mrs. O’Malley’s. It was a fine job, but still. She wanted to venture into the middle of the stream, where the other girls swam. But she never could.

When Helen was thirteen and a strange cramping feeling made her double up in the washroom, she was not frightened but thrilled.

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