Sparrow Hill Road

by Seanan McGuire

  There are no words—bottled ghosts don’t really communicate in words, per se—but the spirit jar manages to communicate, clearly, that it would like to be opened. Right fucking now.

  “That’s nice,” I say. “What’ll you give me?”

  Some of the suggestions the spirit jar makes are anatomically impossible, even for someone as flexible as I am. At least one of them would require my cutting off one or more limbs. Still, I have to be impressed at how articulate it manages to be, given its current lack of vocabulary.

  “Nope, that won’t be happening,” I say. “How about we try this: I’ll let you out, and you’ll go far, far away, and not bother any of the nice, incredibly stupid people that are here with me. And in exchange, I won’t hunt you down and shove you back into the jar. Deal?”

  The jar mutters something sullen.

  “Deal?”

  Grudging assent this time. I reach out and remove the lid, ready to fight if I have to. I don’t. Some innocent backwood haunt too new to know to avoid the scent of myrrh and honey blasts out of the open vessel, chilling the air around me for an instant before it vanishes, racing back into the twilight, where it will presumably be safer than it is out here.

  “It’s always nice to meet the neighbors,” I say, returning the lid to its half-open state. With luck, they’ll never guess the jar was tampered with. I retrieve my flashlight and resume walking.

  By the time I finish my first circuit around the lot, I’ve freed two haunts, a spectral lady, a will-o’-the-wisp, a pelesit, and a very confused poltergeist that takes half the carnival tickets with it when it goes. It’s like a weird naturalist’s cross section of the ghosts of the American Midwest, and it would be a lot more interesting if I wasn’t expecting one of the ghost-hunters to appear at any minute and demand to know what I was doing.

  Instead, a high, horrified scream rises from the direction of the diner. It sounds like one of the Physicists. I stop where I am, turning toward the sound, and wince as the taste of ashes and empty rooms wafts, ever so slightly, across my tongue. “Oh, God, these idiots are going to get themselves killed,” I say, and break into a run. The screaming escorts me all the way.

  The ghost-hunters are backed into the far corner of the diner, packed into the space that still holds the shadowy ghost of a jukebox, playing songs I’m too far into the daylight to quite make out. The temptation to drop down and hear them would normally be a problem for me, but at the moment, it’s easy to ignore the phantom jukebox. The massive spectral dog standing between me and the terrified college students seems likely to be a little more important.

  “How the holy fuck did you people manage to attract a Maggy Dhu?” I blurt out the question before I have a chance to consider its ramifications—namely, that it betrays my knowing more than I’ve been letting on, and that shouting is likely to attract the attention of the Black Hound of the Dead.

  Sure enough, the Maggy Dhu swings its head in my direction, lips drawn back to display teeth like daggers, eyes burning the smoky, angry orange of midnight jack-o’-lanterns and the sort of harvest fire that used to come with a side order of barbecued virgin sacrifice. I take a step back. “Uh, nice doggy. Good doggy. Don’t eat me, doggy.”

  “I don’t know what that thing is, but it is not Scooby-Doo!” wails Marla.

  “Not Scooby-Doo, Maggy Dhu,” I say, keeping my eyes on the dog. It’s the only thing in this room that can hurt me. That means it gets my full attention. “It’s a Black Dog of the Dead. It harvests souls. What did you people do?”

  “N-nothing,” says Jamie. He sounds like he’s hanging onto his sanity by a thread. I guess when he said “ghost,” he was picturing something nice, friendly, and human-looking, like, say, a hitchhiking dead girl from the 1950s. Not the afterlife equivalent of Cujo on a bad hair day. “We were just reading the incantations from the book, and then this . . . this thing . . .”

  “It came out of nowhere,” says Physicist Two. She doesn’t sound as scared as the others, possibly because she sounds like she’s talking in her sleep. We all have our own ways of coping. “It bit Tom. He’s bleeding a lot. Can you make it go away?”

  Shit. Well, at least that explains the screaming. I’d be screaming too, if a Maggy Dhu had just tried to take a chunk out of me. I don’t remember whether they’re venomous. I don’t think so. There’s a level at which things like venom cross into “overkill,” and when you’re a two-hundred-pound spectral hound, you’re basically there. “I don’t know,” I say, with absolute honesty. The Maggy Dhu is still watching me. I think it’s growling. That’s just great. “I’m going to try something, okay? Nobody move.”

  Nobody’s moving. I’m inclined to take this less as a sign of obedience and more as a sign of blind terror. Whatever. The end result is the same. I take another step back. The Maggy Dhu finishes its turn, growl becoming audible. It’s been summoned from the ghostroads to this dead little diner, and it’s pissed. I understand the feeling.

  “Fuck me,” I mutter, and take off running.

  There is no possible way for me to outrun an angry Black Dog for more than a few panic-fueled yards. That’s fine, because a few panic-filled yards is all I need. These kids may be amateurs and idiots, but they’re amateurs and idiots who’ve been turning this place into a giant ghost trap since the sun went down. I have no idea what it takes to catch a Maggy Dhu—I don’t deal much with the totally nonhuman inhabitants of the twilight—but if there’s a standard mechanism, I’d bet my afterlife that it’s somewhere here.

  Actually, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I should let go, drop down into the twilight, and let the Maggy Dhu teach these kids the last lesson they’re ever going to learn. I should let it remind them that there’s a reason the living don’t dance with the dead. And I can’t do it. Maybe it’s because Laura would expect it of me; maybe it’s just that everyone deserves to be dumb, at least once, and you don’t really learn from the things that kill you. So I keep my grip on the borrowed life I’m wearing, and I run like hell.

  The pelesit got snagged in one of the half-drawn Seals of Solomon, but there are still five of them untriggered, scattered around the edges of the lot like a weird version of home base in a game of tag. The first one is just ahead when I hear the Maggy Dhu’s claws scraping against the gravel behind me. I put on a final burst of speed, feet easily clearing the lines of the unfinished circle. I feel like an Olympic sprinter. I feel like my lungs are going to explode. I don’t think I like either feeling.

  The sound of pursuit stops, and the Maggy Dhu starts to growl again. Now it sounds well and truly pissed. I stop running, bracing my hands on my knees and fighting for air as I twist to look back at the Black Dog.

  It’s pressed against the circle’s edge, eyes glowing hellfire red and legs braced in the posture of a junkyard mutt getting ready to charge a trespasser. I’ve never seen an animal that angry. At least it hasn’t realized yet that the circle’s broken, or it would already be on my ass again. It’ll figure it out eventually. Hopefully, I’ll be breathing again by then.

  “I don’t suppose I could convince you to go home,” I wheeze.

  The Maggy Dhu barks furiously, trying to bite the barrier that keeps it from biting my ass instead.

  “I’m going to take that as a ‘no,’” I say, and let the Maggy Dhu bark while I finish getting my breath back. I don’t age, and that also means that no matter how much shit I go through, I’ll never be in better shape than I was in when I died. Back then, girls didn’t go in that much for extracurricular running like their asses were on fire. Sometimes I really wish I’d picked a better era to die in. Like one where all high school students were capable of completing a three-minute mile.

  The Maggy Dhu backs up, clearly intending to charge the barrier. Then its paws pass outside the open spot in the circle. The expression on its face is almost comic as it realizes that it isn’t captive anymore. And then it’s chasing me again, and laughter is the last thing on my mind.

  I have to w
onder what this looks like from inside the diner. If the ghost-hunters are being smart, they’ve surrounded themselves with salt and are staying as far from the windows as possible. Judging by the shadows I see in the glass as I run past, they’re not being smart.

  The Maggy Dhu, on the other hand, is remaining good and pissed. I would envy its single-minded devotion to its purpose, but since that purpose is eating me, I’m not in the mood to root for it just yet. It side-steps the second Seal of Solomon—great, the demon dog has a learning curve—and keeps coming after me, gaining speed all the time.

  One of the patches of rapeseed is right up ahead. Nothing I’ve ever heard has implied that Maggy Dhu are bothered by things like that, but hell, any port in a storm, right? I charge into the middle of it, stepping as high as I can to keep from scattering the seeds. If it doesn’t work—

  The Maggy Dhu stops at the edge of the field of rapeseed, nose dropping to the pavement. I don’t know how good dogs are at math, but if it follows the same rules as every other ghost that can be stopped by scattering small objects, it has to count every seed before it can come after me again.

  “Thank God for stupid folklore,” I mutter, taking a deep breath before I walk, much more slowly now that there isn’t a homicidal Maggy Dhu on my ass, toward the piled-up spirit jars.

  Three of them haven’t been visibly triggered yet. “And thank God for over-prepared college students,” I say, picking up the largest of the jars and peering inside. It’s definitely empty. It should work. Maybe. Possibly.

  Okay, probably not. But lacking any alternative that doesn’t result in the Maggy Dhu chowing down on Jamie and his little band of lunatics, it’s the best chance I’ve got.

  The Maggy Dhu is still sniffing the ground as I walk back to the rapeseed field. I whistle low, the way I used to whistle for the dog we had when I was little. The Maggy Dhu’s head comes up, a growl vibrating from the depths of its chest. “Hi, puppy,” I say. “Catch.”

  The spirit jar hits the Maggy Dhu in the middle of the chest. It yelps, a surprised look spreading across its face.

  And then it’s gone.

  Jamie and the others are scattered around the diner, doing a frankly piss-poor job of hiding themselves under broken tables and behind the remains of the counter. Only one of them, Angela, is huddling in an unbroken circle of salt. The rest of them would be easy pickings for the Maggy Dhu if it were still running loose. Good thing for them the Maggy Dhu is currently having a nice nap in the spirit jar under my arm. I stop in the doorway, watching them watch the windows. Not one of them is bothering to watch the door. That’s the sort of sloppy shortsightedness that can get a person killed, especially on a night like this. Placing two fingers in my mouth, I whistle.

  The reaction in the diner is nothing short of electric. Physicist Two scrambles to position herself in front of the prone body of Physicist One. Angela crosses herself, muttering in frantic, high-pitched Latin. Marla slams back against the wall, raising her handheld EMP device like the weapon it so clearly isn’t. Jamie just stares.

  “Hi,” I say, amiably. “Having a nice night? It’s a little warm for me, but hey, it takes all types, right? You’re from Ohio, you must be used to it, right?”

  Angela squeaks out something else in Latin before catching her breath and asking, “R-Rose? Are you . . . are you okay?”

  “Winded and cranky, and I could really use a milkshake, but that weird dog didn’t bite me, if that’s what you’re asking. It chased me around the parking lot a few times, and then it went running off down the road. Don’t you people do any scouting before you start hunting for dead stuff?”

  “I thought you said it was a . . . what did you call it, a Maggy Dhu?” Marla sounds uncertain. Good.

  I shake my head. “I was wrong. I guess I got overexcited.”

  She slowly lowers her EMP device. “But I thought I saw . . . it ran away?”

  Given a choice between the believable—a big black dog tried to eat us all and then ran away into the night—and the terrifying—a big black ghost dog tried to eat us all, until I managed to suck it into a clay jar from Pottery Barn—even the most enthusiastic ghost-hunter is going to go for the mundane explanation. It’s a matter of self-preservation where their sanity is concerned. There are things the living aren’t meant to deal with knowing.

  “Gosh, Rose—I mean, you could have been seriously hurt.” Jamie takes a step forward. He’s starting to realize that he left me to face the Maggy Dhu alone, and even if his conscious mind is rejecting the reality of the Black Dog, part of him knows exactly what he did. “Are you all right? Did the dog hurt you?”

  “Like I told Angela, I’m fine. How’s Tom? Did you manage to stop the bleeding?”

  Deflection is one of the most useful tools in my particular toolbox. “No,” says Physicist Two—Katherine, she’s Katherine; she’s the one who’s terrified but not currently in danger of dying. She steps aside, giving me my first clear look at her pale, shivering companion. “I keep thinking I have, and then he starts bleeding again. We need to get him to a hospital.”

  A hospital isn’t going to help him; not at this point. I can see the shadows around him, gathering like a burial shroud. If Laura were here, I’d kill her. I don’t care if she’s Tommy’s one true love, there’s a reason the living don’t interfere with the dead.

  This is where I should walk away. And I can’t. “Hold this and stay here,” I say, thrusting the spirit jar into Jamie’s hands. “Whatever you do, don’t drop it. Angela, I need you to clean up as much of the salt as you can. Make sure there’s nothing left that can be considered a circle.”

  “What are you going to do?” demands Marla.

  I sigh. “I’m going to beg.”

  “I stand here open-handed and begging for your mercy, I stand here hopeful and contrite. I stand here ready for your judgment.” I hate begging. It always feels so much like . . . well . . . like begging. I ball my hands into fists, plant them on my hips, and demand, “Well? You owe me. I let you out of that damn jar. Now get your spectral ass over here.”

  The air chills, fills with the scent of dried corn and harvest moons, and the haunt appears. She gathers herself out of the night, wrapping her translucent body in the semblance of a cotton nightgown. Her hair is long and glossy, stirred by a wind that I can’t feel. She’s on a level of the twilight that I’m not native to. For right now, that’s fine by me. “Who are you?” she asks. I can barely hear her. That’s fine, too.

  “I’m Rose Marshall, I’m the one who let you out of the jar, and I’m the one you’re about to do the favor for. We clear?”

  Haunts aren’t the smartest things on the ghostroads. Something about the transition between the living and the dead seems to burn out about half their brain cells. It makes them shitty company, but it also leaves them suggestible, which is a bonus from where I’m standing. She frowns, perplexed, and asks, “What favor?”

  “There’s a man inside the diner. He and his friends conjured a Maggy Dhu by mistake, and he got bitten. He’s not supposed to die yet. He doesn’t have the right smell. I need you to fix it.”

  I’m right about this haunt being new, because she just looks more confused. “Fix it?” she asks. “How?”

  “He’s dying.” I shrug, gesturing toward the diner. “Kiss him.”

  A kiss from a haunt can kill the living or heal the dying. It’s one of those nasty double-edged swords that the twilight is so fond of. Kiss the haunt too soon and it’s good-bye, you silly mortal coil. Put it off too long, and all the kiss will do is guarantee that you’ll be coming back as a haunt yourself. I’m gambling a little—Tom could be farther gone now than he was when I left him—but I don’t think so. He was holding on pretty tightly when I came outside.

  “No more jars?”

  “No more jars,” I promise, and just like that, the haunt’s gone, soaring toward the diner. She vanishes through the window, and the screaming inside starts all over again.

  This time, I don’t
bother hurrying as I walk toward the sound of screams. I’m done with good deeds for the night.

  “It was amazing,” Angela says, grabbing my hands for what feels like the seventy-third time. “This glowing figure came right through the wall and kissed him, and his arm just healed! Like it was never hurt in the first place! It’s a miracle! Oh, Rose, you should have seen it!”

  “Uh-huh,” I agree. Katherine and Tom have the spirit jar that contains the Maggy Dhu. They’ve promised to seal it and drop it into the nearest lake without telling the others, and that’s good enough for me. If they decide to play Pandora, well, they can’t say I didn’t warn them.

  “And Jamie got the whole thing on film!”

  No, he didn’t. “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m sorry I was such a bitch before,” says Marla, walking over to us. Jamie is half a step behind her. They both look shaken. Shaken enough not to do this sort of thing again? I guess only time will tell. By the time it does, I plan to be as far away as possible. “I thought you were just looking for cheap thrills. I didn’t realize you knew more about this than we did.”

  “Uh-huh,” I agree again. It’s safer than any of the alternatives I can come up with, most of which involve laughing in her face.

  “I wanted to say thank you,” says Jamie. “I really don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been here to distract that dog. I’m just sorry you missed seeing the ghost. That was . . . it was amazing. It was life-changing. It almost made all this worth it.”

  “Only almost,” adds Marla.

  “No more ghost-chasing, right?” I ask, folding my arms. “This was a one-shot deal, it didn’t work out, and now you’re going to remember that your mothers taught you not to play with dead things?”

  “But we saw a ghost, Rose,” protests Angela. “It wasn’t the one we were trying for, sure, but we can try again. We can find the Phantom Prom Date. We can—”