Unbroken

by Paula Morris

  “You not gonna hear Kermit Ruffins on Bourbon Street,” said Raf. “You not gonna hear Trombone Shorty!”

  “Sixth Ward!” whooped Brando, drawing a hard look from Mr. Boyd. Everyone rapidly resumed their weeding, heads down.

  When Rebecca finally straightened up, her back aching from too much bending over, she was so startled she dropped her gardening fork.

  Frank was sitting on the steps of a green house across the street.

  A man wearing an ENTERGY uniform walked up the steps, right through Frank, and knocked on the door. So this couldn’t be the derelict house where Frank was killed.

  Rebecca didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t just wander off across the street. Raf was only a few feet away, industriously weeding, and Junior was pushing a wheelbarrow, trying to make the others laugh by swerving it around in circles.

  Frank seemed to sense her hesitation. He stood up, and gestured down the street, toward the three collapsing houses she’d noticed earlier that day. He seemed to be pointing to the first house, the one with vines pushing their way through the walls and out the roof, and twisting up along nearby power lines. Its drainpipes were rusted over and the two front windows were sealed with boards. A locked, chained gate protected the front door. It would be incredibly difficult to get in or out of this house, as far as Rebecca could tell. Even the collapsed chimney was knitted over with an entangled jungle of vines.

  It hit her then: This was Frank’s house.

  She turned back to look for Frank, but he was gone.

  Raf glanced up to see her staring desperately in the direction of the houses.

  “Those houses down there look kind of dangerous,” she said, thinking quickly.

  “Yeah, you right. They going next week.”

  “Going?”

  “The city owns all this land now, and they want to put up some more school buildings. Those houses are coming down on Monday.”

  Rebecca stuck her gardening fork into a damp patch of ground, pretending to concentrate on shredding her way through the weeds, but her mind was buzzing. Frank had found someone to help him just in time, because the house — and anything hidden within — was going to be smashed to smithereens in a matter of days.

  The locket might get found in the process, but it was more likely that it would be crushed beneath the wheels, or in the steel jaws, of some giant bulldozer or digger. Or someone would find it and take it, not knowing that this meant Frank would be doomed to the misery of the spirit world for eternity. But how on earth was Rebecca supposed to break in? She wanted to help Frank — she really did. But it all seemed too hard.

  “What’s the big hurry?” Rebecca asked Raf, trying to sound casual. “I mean, the school year is almost over.”

  “The school wants those houses gone. All the older people around here, too, they keep shouting about them to the city councilors. One of the houses — the far one, with the graffiti on it? Some drug dealers were using it for a while. There was a shooting, right here in the street. Another time this old man, Mr. Robert we call him, he was sitting in his own house watching TV. Outside they all started shooting at each other and a bullet went right through the screen.”

  “Was he OK?”

  “He was OK, but the TV was shot dead. That’s what he went around saying, ‘My TV got itself shot dead.’ He’d lived here for years and years, long as I can remember. But after that his daughter came to get him, and made him move in with her in Gentilly. My aunt was saying we should all move as well.”

  “I’d want to move,” said Ling, walking over to them. She tossed cold bottles of water to Rebecca and Raf.

  “Where we gonna go?” Raf asked her, uncapping his bottle. “Where’s it any better? Anywhere we can afford, I mean. At least here my daddy can walk to work.”

  “Maybe someone could fix those houses up?” Rebecca suggested, nervously taking a big gulp of water. “Old houses like those are a piece of the city’s history. Sad to think of that history gone forever.”

  “Better to have a vacant lot than a fixed-up house nobody can afford. Anyway, nobody would want to live in that house.” Raf gestured with the end of Junior’s discarded rake toward the house at the near end of the row — Frank’s house. “People say it’s haunted.”

  “Really?” Rebecca tried to keep her voice down. “What do they say? What have they seen?”

  “I don’t know.” Raf shrugged. “Everyone’s got stories like that. Most of the houses in Tremé must be haunted, right? People been living and dying here for a long, long time.”

  “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

  Raf raised his eyebrows. He was smiling, but Rebecca wasn’t sure if he was laughing at her or not.

  “This is New Orleans,” he said. “Anything is possible.”

  “A lot of talking going on over here, but not much working.” Mr. Boyd seemed to spring up out of nowhere. He stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the remaining patches of straggly weeds with obvious disapproval. “Your average hungry rabbit would have done a better job. You, Uptown Girl! You’re distracting my labor force. I’m transferring you to litter collection. But Miss Thing — you have leadership potential. You’re promoted to lieutenant of plant-unloading.”

  Ling scampered off toward a plant-laden flatbed truck, and Rebecca was handed a heavy-duty black trash bag and a stick with a blunt-looking spike. She didn’t mind being moved. At least this way she could get close to Frank’s house and really snoop around. Maybe there’d be a broken window, or just one plank of wood nailed across the back door.

  Rebecca wandered along the chain-link fence that marked the old boundary of the school, plucking litter from the scraggly weeds. Out of the corner of one eye she examined the house. One hard tug on the overgrown vines stretching over the roof, and the whole building would probably come down. Its walls were stripped of any color by the sun and the wind and the rain.

  As she edged closer, Rebecca could smell mold, and something else — something awful, like the decaying carcass of a dead animal. Maybe the walls and floorboards inside were rotten. Rebecca shuddered. She poked her spiked stick into a discarded orange juice carton and heaved it into her trash bag. If she managed to get inside the house, what else would she find in there? Raccoons? Snakes? Rats? Roaches? Oh, yes, there’d be roaches everywhere.

  Rebecca swiveled to get a better look at the back of the house and gasped so loudly it sounded like a squeak. The dark-haired man she’d seen on Rampart Street on Sunday was sitting on the back stairs of the house, resting on one elbow, and staring straight at her.

  He scowled at Rebecca in a way that annoyed and also frightened her. She glanced up the street toward the weed patch where Raf and Brando and Junior were hard at work. If she screamed, they’d hear her. If he made one single move toward her, she’d scream her lungs out and lunge at him with the spiked stick.

  Was he a ghost? And could ghosts attack? The only ghosts Rebecca knew were nice ones — Lisette and Frank. But maybe some were mean.

  But the dark-haired man didn’t move. He just looked at her with contempt, as though he were regarding a roach after he’d crushed it under his shoe.

  “Don’t you be thinking of trying to get in here,” he said.

  “I’m not,” Rebecca said, affronted. “I’m just looking, that’s all.”

  “Yeah,” said the mean man. “I know what you looking for. I seen you talking to him.”

  “I don’t know … I don’t know what you’re saying.” Rebecca’s heart was thumping so hard, it was about to dance its way out of her mouth and flop onto the ground. Talking to who? Raf? Junior? Mr. Boyd?

  “First I seen you walking with her, and now I seen you talking to him.” The man glared up at Rebecca, and she instinctively took a step back. “And that tells me that here’s a person who likes to meddle in other people’s business. Here’s a person who thinks she can interfere.”

  “Excuse me, but who are you?” Rebecca demanded. The tone of his voice was beyond rude. “I�
��m here to help the school. I’m not meddling in anyone’s business.”

  He snorted, and shook his head.

  “I ain’t talking about no school,” he said, screwing up his face to suggest she was the crazy one. “I’m talking about history. You trying to mess with history. You’re trying to mess with eternity.”

  He reached for his jacket lapel, pulling it back in what felt like slow motion. Scream, Rebecca told herself. Run. But it was too late. He was reaching for a gun, she realized, tucked into the waistband of his trousers. She didn’t know what she’d done to make him so angry, but now there was nothing she could do except stand there in a panic, her head swimming, her heart oomphing louder than any brass band.

  But he was holding open his jacket, she saw now, and there was no gun. No gun, no knife, no weapon of any kind. Just a broad dark splotch of dried blood, like a gravy stain on his shirt. He was showing her his wound. She’d been right the first time she saw him: This man was a ghost.

  “If I’m damned for all time,” he said slowly, staring at her hard with those mean, bloodshot eyes, “then so is your boy Frank. You understand?”

  So this horrible man must have seen Rebecca walking with Lisette, and he must have seen her talking to Frank. And now he was choosing to make himself visible to her, to give her this warning.

  “So,” he said, closing his jacket again, “unless you’re planning on joining us real soon here in the afterlife, best you keep away.”

  Rebecca opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She felt dizzy and cold, despite the heat of the day, and she had to grab on to the chain-link fence to keep standing upright. She closed her eyes for a moment, fighting back nausea, and when she opened them again the ghost had disappeared. The busted-up wooden steps leading to the back door were empty.

  So Frank wasn’t the only ghost in New Orleans who knew about the locket under the floorboards. Who was this guy, and why did he hate Frank — and now Rebecca — so much?

  I don’t understand,” Ling said to Rebecca. They were sitting in the kitchen of their rented house while her father talked on the phone in the next room. “Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “I just have a really bad headache,” Rebecca repeated, staring down at the ridges of the wooden table. “Too much sun today or something.”

  “It wasn’t even sunny.” Ling looked skeptical. “Is this about Anton?”

  “No. This isn’t about Anton. I haven’t even thought about him today.”

  More lies. She’d been thinking about Anton ever since the mean ghost accosted her. She was desperate to call or text him, and tell him what was happening. But there was no point. He’d just tell her to keep away from Frank and have nothing to do with any of this.

  “Becca, we’ve been friends forever,” Ling said. “Why can’t you tell me why you’re so unhappy? Is it something I’ve done?”

  “No,” Rebecca muttered. She stood up, avoiding Ling’s frank gaze. She hated hurting her friend like this. “You haven’t done anything. Really. I just need some time alone. I’m going for a walk, OK? Tell my Dad I went to the pharmacy or something. I’ll be back … soon.”

  On the corner of Rampart Street, she paced up and down, impatiently waiting for Frank. There was more traffic at this time of night, with people driving home from work or arriving in the Quarter for dinner, but — luckily — the usual dearth of pedestrians. Rampart Street wasn’t the kind of place anyone went for a dusk stroll.

  “I’m here,” Frank said, materializing in front of her in a way that might have seemed magical if it weren’t so unsettling — especially as the first thing she noticed was the blue gleam of his eyes.

  “You have been keeping things from me,” she said, jabbing a finger toward him. A finger, she realized, that could touch nothing but thin air. “You sit there on St. Philip Street, pointing at a house, and then you just disappear! No warning that there might be another ghost waiting there for me!”

  “I’m sorry.” Frank hung his head. “I couldn’t come over. I just couldn’t. He could have hurt me. Ghosts can do that to each other, you know. They go straight for the wound.”

  “Great.” The more Rebecca learned about the world of ghosts, the more it seemed like a dismal and terrifying place. “Who is he?”

  “His name is Gideon Mason. I thought if he didn’t see me with you, he wouldn’t know … I mean, he might think you were just some busybody snooping around the back of an old house. Not someone who was trying to help me in particular.”

  Rebecca shuddered. “It’s too late. He’s already seen me with you. He said he saw me with Lisette last year, and that he thinks I’m some kind of meddler in the spirit world. And now he’s threatening to hurt me. Is that even possible? Can ghosts hurt people?”

  “I don’t think so,” Frank said, but he didn’t look sure. “I know I can’t. I’ve heard …”

  “Heard what?” Frank wasn’t reassuring Rebecca one bit.

  “I’ve heard that ghosts can lure people into dangerous situations. To the brink of a cliff, or an open window. But they can’t physically attack you, as such. Not that I know of, anyway. Rebecca, I would never put you in that situation. You have to believe me.”

  “Why do I have to believe you?” snapped Rebecca. “I don’t even know you! You could be the most evil and manipulative ghost in the whole world! This whole locket story could be a ruse to — what was it you said? Lure me into a dangerous situation?”

  Frank looked hurt.

  “Why would I do that? What have I got against you?”

  “You tell me,” retorted Rebecca, her face flushing with anger. “Who knows what goes on in your stupid ghost head? Is there really a locket, or did you just make that up?”

  “I’ve told you everything!” Frank protested. “Please, listen. That man you saw today, Gideon Mason. He’s the man who murdered me.”

  Rebecca caught her breath. It was one thing to know that Frank had been murdered, and another thing to realize she’d come face-to-face with his actual killer. She shivered, thinking of Gideon Mason’s angry face, and his threats.

  “And then he was murdered himself,” Frank went on. He was standing closer to Rebecca now, his blue eyes boring into her.

  “Why does he still hate you? Why isn’t he all aggrieved with the person who murdered him?”

  “Let me …,” Frank said, pausing as though he didn’t know how to go on. “Let me go back a bit. When the artist gave me the locket, Mason was on the dock as well. He must have seen me get the locket, and the money, because he followed me all the way to the house I showed you, the one on St. Philip Street.”

  “But I don’t get it.” Rebecca frowned, trying to make sense of the geography of Frank’s story. “What were you doing in Tremé? Why didn’t you just walk along the river to Esplanade? St. Philip was really out of your way.”

  Frank was silent. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

  Rebecca shook her head. “Don’t tell me you weren’t taking the locket to the house on Esplanade,” Rebecca said. “Please.”

  “I was, I was!” he said. “I was walking toward Esplanade Avenue, just as you say, but then — well, I changed my mind. It was wrong of me, I know. But something wicked came into my head, and instead of going straight to the house, I went to look for my friend. His name was Connor, and we’d worked on the docks together. I wanted to find him so we could have a drink with the money I’d been given.”

  He hung his head and didn’t go on. Rebecca couldn’t question him for a minute or so because a couple was crossing Rampart Street and about to walk right past her. She stared at her phone as they passed, pretending to check a nonexistent message.

  “So you went to this house,” Rebecca said at last, when there was no one around to hear her. “And then this Gideon Mason guy attacked you?”

  “Yes, in the street,” Frank explained, “and then he dragged me into the house. It was a place used by the gang he belonged to, but nobody else was there. He stabbed me and
I fell face-down on the floor. The last thing I could manage to do when I was alive was slip the locket out of my pocket and let it drop between the floorboards. I didn’t want him to have it.”

  Rebecca swallowed. Hearing someone talk about their own death was awful. And what must it be like to then see your murderer in the ghost world, roaming the very same streets where he hunted you down?

  “He took my money, which wasn’t much. That’s when two other men arrived at the house. He was boasting about how he’d found a good mark, because I was carrying a silver locket as well as money. They demanded to see the locket, and he didn’t have it. They searched my body and couldn’t find it. Then they all started shouting. They said he’d stolen the locket, or else he’d made the story up to justify murdering someone in their house and putting them all at risk of detection. The others didn’t trust him and they were angry and drunk. There was a fight and he was stabbed.”

  Rebecca realized she was holding her breath.

  “So — you were there — I mean, the ghost of you was there?” she whispered.

  “Watching, yes. But when I saw my murderer fall over, bleeding, I left. Straight through the walls and back to Rampart Street. All I could see around me were ghosts. I was terrified. Delphine was the one who calmed me down. She called out to me, and told me that it wasn’t so bad being a ghost. She was wrong, but … Well. There was nothing I could do about it. Not until now.”

  “So, Gideon Mason died, obviously,” Rebecca said softly, trying not to feel glad that he’d gotten his comeuppance. All these murders! New Orleans must have been a dangerous place in those days.

  “Yes, he died. The first time I went back to the house I saw him, and that’s when I knew for certain. Another ghost told me his name — I didn’t know who he was, of course. And eventually he figured out that the locket must still be inside the house, because I kept going back there. He told me that if I hadn’t hidden it, he wouldn’t have been murdered that night. He thinks he would have had a chance to redeem himself for the crimes he’s committed, and to be a better man. Instead he’s a murderer who was murdered himself. He’s going to be a ghost forever.”