| abstract | - The episode begins with Melinda and Delia out shopping. At a gift shop, Delia sees a chest full of wooden ornaments and persuades Melinda to buy them. Upon returning to the Melinda's shop with the chest, Melinda receives visions from the ornaments. After Delia leaves to run some errands, the spirit of a man appears in the back room of Melinda's shop. When Melinda tries to talk to him, he begins throwing the ornaments and breaking things. Melinda begins to think the ghost cannot see her. She takes the chest home with her where she receives visions of a fight. The ghost appears in Melinda's house and she thinks the ghost wants her to get rid of the ornaments, so she burns them. After she and Jim go back into the house, the ornaments are back in the chest on the kitchen table, as if they were never touched. The spirit of the man also appears again. Melinda goes to see Professor Rick Payne to ask if there are such objects that can coexist in both the spirit world and the earthbound world. He confirms the idea, calling the objects aports, or objects that bring clarity and manifestation of something that is extremely important or symbolic. Melinda returns to the gift shop to ask the owner where she got the chest of ornaments. The owner admits that she doesn't remember where she got the ornaments and that they "just appeared" out of nowhere. Another ornament appears as Melinda is leaving, as does the ghost. The shop owner gives Melinda the ornament, saying she thinks Melinda will need it. When Melinda gets in her car, she examines the ornament and receives another vision: she's standing in a field and suddenly the foundation and walls of a house appear around her. After this vision, Melinda asks Delia if she knows of such a house. Giving her some real estate expertise, Melinda goes in search of the house in her vision. She finds the house and decides to pay a visit that night. Going into the house, she finds a woman in a rocking chair, hitting the wall as she rocks and staring at the wall. The body of the spirit is on the floor behind her, surrounded by paper, paintbrushes, and popsicle sticks. The ghost of the man also appears. Melinda calls Jim for help. Jim tells Melinda the woman's name is Christine Nelson and the body is that of Dennis Hightower. Melinda goes to talk with Christine at a clinic, who will not respond, when Christine's doctor tells Melinda that Christine is autistic. Melinda also learns that Christine and Dennis were a couple and that they lived together since their 20s. Christine's doctor notices one of the wooden ornaments on Christine's table and Melinda explains that she sells them in her store. Taking the ornament, Melinda receives another vision: Christine returning home to find Dennis's body on the floor. The vision then rewinds through Dennis's actions before he died; Dennis turns on the oven to bake something, but instead, dies from carbon monoxide poisoning. Christine's "ritual" of opening all the windows in the house when she came home saved her life. Still unaware of why Dennis's spirit is earthbound, Melinda goes back to Professor Payne to learn more about the wooden ornaments. She has another vision of a girl being taken from her mother and Professor Payne begins to wonder about Melinda's strange questions, saying what she experiences might be psychometry. Later, Melinda talks with Delia and proposes that Delia come to work at Same As it Never Was. Melinda goes back to visit Christine with the wooden ornaments to find out if they mean anything to her. Melinda discovers that each ornament represents something about Christine's mother. Christine then turns the pieces and puts them together to reveal the face of her mother: the gift shop owner who sold Melinda the ornaments. Melinda returns to the gift shop with the ornaments and confronts the owner. The owner admits that she gave Christine up and that no one at the time had a real understanding of what autism was. Melinda convinces her to go and visit Christine. At first, the owner doesn't know if she can love Christine, but she realizes she wants to be in Christine's life. Melinda also realizes this was the reason why Dennis is still earthbound. After the shop owner and Christine start to bond over a puzzle, Dennis finally crosses over into the Light.
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