Meeting Jessilyn Archambault

I knew my way around La Rochelle very well.  Between getting my feet off the ground for a few yards to sprinting the rest of the way, I made it there just before the sun set.  I wasn't sure how to find Jessilyn Archambault but instincts told me to go into the cemetery which just off the fork in the road.  She might be there.  Or the morgue. But then, that's thinking like a mortal.  Where would you go if you were a ghost and you just found out about it?  You either go to the light which she did not or you roam and try to get your bearings to make sense of the whole thing.  I tried using mental telepathy but it wasn't working.  I was on my own.

I had built up some flight, so I flew over to the cemetery.  Nothing.  Then it dawned on me.  Of course! I had to find out where Jessilyn Arcambault's family was murdered.

I couldn't very well ask anyone but I figured by dropping in at a local tavern, there might be some talk about the murder and, sure enough, there was.

Two heavyset men sat at one end of the bar while the tavern keeper kept their glasses full.

"I knew it was coming," one of them said.  "Richelieu is going to get all of us if we don't watch our backs."

Richelieu? 

I crept closer.

"Shot all of them," said the other.  "They ought to hang him."

Another man with a long black beard and gray coat sat beside them.  "You heard the news I suppose?"

Both men nodded.  

"We need to get him."

One of the other men took a long sip, put his glass down and spat on the floor.  "Before he gets us."

Could it be the same Richelieu who chopped off my head?

"Did you see the place?" said the man with the long black beard.  "Blood everywhere.  They boarded up the door but someone tore the door off the hinges and people are in and out of there."

"That's disgusting," said one of the men.

Where? Where?

Just then, the tavern doors swung wide open.  A elderly man with a white mustache entered and looked as if he were out of breath.  "They're over there and threatening to burn the Archambault's house down."

The three men sitting at the bar rushed past the elderly man.  Here was my chance and off I flew!

There are certain advantages to being a ghost.  Invisibility has to be at the top of the list.  I flew past the mob and entered the Armchambault's house.  It was two stories so I made my way up to the second floor and peered into one of the bedrooms.  Blood covered the walls and no sign of anyone else besides myself.  I poked my head into one of the other bedrooms and everything was in place, no blood, just a bed, dresser and a bedside table.

I went to go back downstairs when a shadow ran right through me.

"Oh mon dieu ! Qui êtes-vous ? Restez loin de moi!"

She. Was. Beautiful.  Of course, what you see isn't what you saw when they weren't dead; I certainly wasn't, but this woman floating beside me was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in all my life.

"Are you Jessilyn?"

"Oui.  I am Jessilyn.  Who are you?"

"I'm Henri.  I'm here to help. Do you realize you are dead?"  Maybe it wasn't the best thing to say right then, but she had to know.

"Morts? C'est absurde! I'm trying to find my mother and father and my little brother.  Have you seen them?"

"Um, Miss Jessilyn.  Can we talk?"

I led her to the bed and we both sat down. "Miss Jessilyn--"

She put a finger to my lips.  "Call me Jessie, please."

"Okay, Jessie.  I'm not sure the delicate way to handle this but there has been a terrible accident.  You were killed."

"Killed?"

"Yes."

Her head hung low and she said in a low voice, "I knew it."

"I'm dead, too."

"You were killed, too?"

"I was.  Just not here.  But I have a stinking feeling that we were both killed by the same person.  Watch this."  I took my head off my body.  "I was beheaded."

"Oh mon dieu!"

"Yeah, not a really good thing to have happen, but that was the past and we have to live in the now.  In the now of the afterlife, that is."

"So what do we do?"

"Tell you what.  Join me.  Let's go figure out this ghostie thing and maybe have a little fun along the way.  By the way, why didn't you go to the light?"

"I was scared?"

"Good enough.  Do you care to join me on this journey?"

"I'd like that."

So there we were, Juicy and I, floating side by side not knowing where we were going or what would happen when we got there.

"Henri?"

"Yes?"

"I want to find out who killed me."

"Exactly."