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Mary McGuire was an attractive and thoroughly contemporary young woman, someone who might
have stepped from the pages of either the Ladies' Home Journal or Ms. She had short, platinum-white
hair, the clearest blue eyes I'd ever seen, and a lively, warm smile; the overall impression she gave
was one of happiness. She seemed secretly tickled, as though she'd just heard that she'd won the
Massachusetts Lottery.
She showed me into the kitchen, a small cozy room, put on some water, and took the phone off the
hook so that we wouldn't be disturbed.
Like Nelda Speers, Mary knew only my name and the fact that I was working on a book. Apparently
she was anxious to keep it that way - any details she picked up in conversation might inadvertently
creep into the reading, she explained - and so, as soon as my tea was ready, the reading began.
I gave her a watch, a unisex Texas Instruments digital watch that had belonged to Lona, and told her
that I'd be particularly interested in hearing anything she might pick up about its owner.
"I was sure you'd come here with something special in mind," she said. "If it's possible, we'll give you
what you want. Each person establishes their own criteria for proof. Sometimes we can be efficient,
and sometimes, we don't know why, but we can't."
She stood somewhat formally, with her eyes closed, at the other side of the kitchen table. I noticed
that she had a nice figure; brown slacks, a yellow blouse, and a brown velour jacket echoed her trim
lines. She held the watch in front of her, toying with it idly. Her fingers were long and fine, but the
veins on the back of her hands were quite pronounced, as though she'd just finished exercising.
"I don't know who this watch belongs to," she began, "so I don't know when I'll be getting into that
vibration; but I do feel a very strong brotherly feeling in talking to you. Perhaps you would recognize
someone that would come like a brother."
Well, I thought, here we go again.
Within a matter of minutes, Mary had described someone who might well have been my infant
brother and someone else who bore a striking resemblance to my maternal grandfather. She went on
to describe other spirits whom I didn't recognize, but then stunned me with a casual, offhand remark.
"I'm also receiving the name of Emily," she said. "I don't know that that will have any special
meaning for you, but I'm sensing a young girl that has been drawn to you from spirit in a guiding
way."
As far as I could remember, I'd only known two Emilys during my lifetime. One was the five-year-old
daughter of a good friend; the other was Emily Fisher, a young writer with whom I'd once worked. A
year or so after I'd last seen her, Emily Fisher committed suicide.
A few minutes later, Mary touched on another familiar subject.
"As you go into the August month," she told me, "you're going to feel as though your weight is more
balanced, your step is more confident. But I feel right now that you are sort of limping along in a way.
I don't know if it's emotionally, spiritually - they're not telling me."
What was going on, I wondered. It wasn't as though I limped all the time. Once or twice a week, in the
privacy of my own home, I found myself walking on the outside of my left foot. It wasn't something
that a stranger would pick up on.
As Mary read, her pale-blue eyes darted back and forth beneath closed lids like those of a person
dreaming. She seemed peaceful, at ease, but at times her brow would furrow, or the tendons in her
neck grow taut, or she would cock her head to one side, as though listening to a sound far away. She
reminded me of a deer in the forest, completely relaxed and completely alert.
She continued to finger Lona's watch as she talked, moving it back and forth from one hand to the
other, but it wasn't until the end of the reading that she mentioned it.
"Did the person who belonged to this, was there a shock to their system concerned with their
passing?" she asked. "All dying must be traumatic in a way, but was there trauma involved?"
"Yes, there was," I answered.
"Because I'm picking that up very strongly," she said. "I don't know how long they're gone into spirit,
but I don't feel that it's a very long time. There's a mending process that must take place even when the
body is discarded, and I feel as though I'm well on my way to being mended. I feel I'm peaceful. I get
peaceful - that's the word I want to say. I feel choked up too," she noted, and began to cough as
though she really were choking. "I don't know," she faltered. "I don't want to strain in that vibration."
I recalled Nelda Speers' remark about a breathing problem.
"I do, I feel sort of emotional," she went on. "I feel unfortunate, I feel regret, and yet I feel as though I
was carried away with the momentum of a wave. I don't know why I would say that." She laughed
lightly, as though embarrassed by a poor analogy. "I don't necessarily mean that they passed in the
water, but I feel as though it was some type of momentum that was involved. Would you understand
why I would say that?" she asked.
"Yes, I would."
"I want to come over to you - some spirit, whether it's this one or another I don't know - and I want to
stroke your face." Mary's voice was suddenly soft and loving. "I feel very kind in nature as this spirit
is touching me; and if there's one thing I could convey to you, it would be this feeling of peace and
calm. I feel the guidance of spirit very strongly around you," she observed. "Whether you feel it or
not, I don't know, but I feel that they're guiding you a great deal of the time."
The reading ended rather abruptly a few minutes later. "I find that I'm straining," Mary explained, "so
I'm going to let it go."
It had been short and sweet, more provocative than evidential, but interesting nonetheless.
Now that our business was over, Mary fixed another pot of tea, and we sat and talked for a short
while. I learned that she was the wife of a police captain, the mother of five children, and a part-time
secretary at a local high school. She had been mediumistic since her youth and now served as the
pastor of the Swampscott Spiritualist Church. Amazingly, she remained something of a skeptic.
"I'm still scrounging around for confirmation myself," she admitted. "Immortality is a nice concept,
and. I buy it, but I'm still working on it. I believe it, but I'm still not sure how we can prove it."
She noted that her husband was an unpersuaded atheist.
"I'm not sure if a reading is the most valid method," she suggested. "If I were you, I'd try to do it for
myself." -
It was a fascinating possibility, and one that I entertained at length on my way home. The notion of
communicating with spirits - of seeing them and hearing them, of having them answer questions about
the past and future - appealed for a number of obvious reasons, not the least of which was
professional. I imagined interviews with Christ and Lincoln and Lee Harvey Oswald. But the idea was
a fiction held together by flaws.
To begin with, I didn't know whether or not such spirits existed. I'd seen a few tantalizing clues, but
nothing that qualified as proof. And if they did, I suspected that getting in touch with them wasn't
something I could just go out and do, any more than I could just go out and perform a tonsillectomy or
play a Chopin Polonaise. Talent, training, and mastering skills were certainly required.
And, I thought, with my luck, even if there were spirits and I could communicate with them, Lincoln
would probably issue a "No comment" or refer me to his press secretary.
No, thanks, I'd continue to obtain my information from ordinary, if less interesting, sources: living
people, court documents, medical records, business reports, the public library, AP, and UPI. They
might not be able to tell me who was going to win at Pimlico tomorrow, but I was comfortable with
them.
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