Page 18 of A Ghost of a Chance

Rafe sank into a chair, wearier than he’d realized.

“I’m Peter Brown, the vicar. What brings you to our parish, Mr...?”

“Beauchamp,” Rafe answered automatically. His voice had a course, breathy quality that sounded foreign to his own ears. Why had he come to this small village? Last night’s events crowded out thoughts of a life before meeting Osanne.

Had he imagined her? Had he gone out of his mind?

Mr. Brown pressed a cup of something hot into his hand and placed a blanket around his shoulders.

“Thank you.” Rafe drank the strong tea, the heat slowly thawing the ice in his chest and returning the feeling to his fingers.

The vicar sat nearby, not pressing him for conversation, merely waiting and watching him with kind brown eyes. Something about the man’s quiet mannerism loosened Rafe’s tongue.

“Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Brown?” Rafe asked.

Mr. Brown’s eyebrows lifted briefly but he gave no other sign of surprise. “I believe there is a great deal we do not understand. The superstitious are quick to name ghosts or fairies or leprechauns, but that doesn’t make them real.”

Just as Rafe supposed.

“However,” the vicar continued. “I do believe we all have souls and that after we die, those souls move on to another realm of existence.”

“Then you do believe in ghosts or spirits?”

“I believe most ghost stories to be simply stories, and that there are usually more ordinary explanations for what many believe are the actions of ghosts. But I also believe that some spirits do not immediately go to their eternal reward. Some of them stay here, among us.”

“On All Hallows’ Eve?”

“Perhaps. Many believe the veil between earth and Heaven to part on All Hallows’ Eve, so the spirits of the dead may visit the still living.”

Rafe sipped his tea as he mentally examined the vicar’s words. So, the idea of seeing a lovely young lady who was, in fact, a ghost, was not completely unfathomable. “What exactly are spirits?”

“They are the essence of what we are—eternal personalities, if you will—that, for a time, live in mortal bodies. Then, our bodies die, eventually turning to dust. But the spirit lives on. I do not know why some return. Perhaps they have some unresolved problem or task and cannot bring themselves to leave it behind.”

Did Osanne have some unresolved problem? He pressed his hands over his eyes. Acting on a hunch, Rafe asked, “Have you been here long?”

The vicar smiled. “I grew up here. I left for my education and to pursue other interests for a number of years, but recently returned to assume this position after my father died.”

“I’m sorry about your father.”

“Thank you. He is with my mother in a better place.” The vicar waited while Rafe pulled his thoughts together.

“Have you heard the name Osanne Jewell?”

“Jewell is the surname of the owner of the Great House, Ravenswood Manor, though they have let out the house to others now.”

Rafe nodded.

The vicar narrowed his eyes. “If memory serves, Osanne is the name of the young lady who died from a fall many years ago.”

Osanne had said she had fallen.

“People still talk about her,” Mr. Brown said. “She went looking for her younger brother and never came home. Weeks later someone found her remains below a rise.”

Rafe set aside his shaking cup and saucer. It was too fantastical to believe. He could not have met a ghost. Yet, every part of him ached to see her again. He relived the longing to touch her, only to discover she had no form.

Had he dreamed it?

How could he have dreamed about a girl who had died twenty-five years before his birth? He had never stepped foot in this village before, had never known of anyone with the surname of Jewell, could not have simply heard her name in passing and created a dream around her.