by Shyla Colt
“You know, I might be able to sleep now. Thank you for the distraction.” She smiled.
“The pleasure was all mine.”
She stood. “Aren’t you turning in, too?”
“I want to update the team and make a few notes for research purposes first. I’ll be right behind you. Please help yourself to anything in the kitchen. There are towels in the linen closet along with spare toothbrushes. My siblings crash here all the time, so I keep it stocked.”
“You sound close. It must be nice.”
“It’s a double-edged sword. But I wouldn’t trade them for the world.”
“Good night, Micah.”
“Night.” He watched her walk out of the room and waited until she disappeared before he stood and began to gather sage incense. Lighting it around the home, he prayed the spirit haunting her was attached to the property and not the woman. While she slept, he keep watch until the witching hour passed and prayed he hadn’t invited anything sinister into his home.
“YOU SEEM DISTRACTED today. What’s going on with you?” Luka leaned against the table in the breakroom, facing him. It was just like his eldest brother to corner him and hit him with the tough questions. Despite the fact that they were all grown, he continued to act as their pseudo father.
Micah glanced up at his older brother and sighed. Lying felt wrong. He considered his words as he added sugar and creamer to the late day boost of caffeine they were consuming in the breakroom.
“I’m working on my lead first case. They’re letting me take the lead and direct the team. It’s awesome, but this case is tricky. There’s a lot of activity occurring, and we’ve yet to figure out why.”
“I know you want to prove yourself, but you can’t help others if you don’t take better care of yourself. The dark circles aren’t a good look. You appear to be doing your best impression of a freshman in the throes of their first round of finals.”
“I feel like it. The stakes are the highest they’ve ever been.”
Luka frowned. “Because it’s your first case?”
Micah shook his head. “Yes and no.”
“How can it be both?”
Micah cleared his throat. “I met a woman.”
Luka’s eyes widened. “Wait. We’re going to need to take a seat for this.” They walked to a table in the corner beside the window. “What does one have to do with the other? Why am I just now hearing about this?”
“That’s where things get complicated. Daize is our current client. I know it sounds fishy, but you don’t let a woman like this get away. She’s beautiful. Her father’s from Hawaii and her mother is African American, giving her a beautiful golden complexion, fat, glossy black curls, and huge brown eyes I swear see through you. More than her looks, though ... she’s smart, funny, and driven. Her passion for marine biology is inspiring. She moved here from San Diego to take her dream job.”
“You’re skating on very thin ethical ice, little brother,” Luka cautioned gently.
“I know. We’ve tried to ignore it. It didn’t take. I’ve been taking it slow and following her cues.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not proud of myself. It’s likely the team won’t approve, but we feel how we feel. No one’s being hurt or taken advantage of.”
“Are you defending yourself to me?” Luka inquired.
“Shouldn’t I be?” Micah asked quietly.
“Life happens. All we can do is respond. I’ll be honest, I’m relieved.”
“You are?” Micah asked, shocked.
“For the past year, you’ve thrown yourself into ghost hunting. It’s become an obsession that overtook every other aspect of your life. Even when you’re here at work, I feel like you count down the moments until you can join your new family.”
“I’m sorry if I made you feel that way. The family comes first. My marriage to Olive and the impending birth of our first child don’t change that. I do hope you know that.”
“I do. For so long, all we’ve had was each other. Our world is broadening. Marriages, babies, new friends, and interests are changing our dynamics. It’s a blessing that came with unexpected growing pains. I know working with the team fulfills an empty place inside of you. I don’t understand it, but I respect that. All I ask, is you don’t forget to live and remember the other people in your life. It seems like Daize snapped you out of that.”
“I won’t forget.” This case felt like the final boss in a video game. His gut told him this was the investigation he’d been waiting for.
“Good. Be careful how you proceed. If it goes sideways, it could ruin the reputation in the field you’ve worked so hard to develop a good reputation in and kill any chances of your relationship prospects. When you get a chance, I want to meet the woman who returned my brother to the land of the living.”
“I didn’t realize how much I’d pulled away from everyone. It felt like you were all pairing up, so I had to focus on my own thing.” Micah paused. The subject of their parents wasn’t taboo, but it didn’t come up often. The untimely loss of a loved one wasn’t a wound that fully healed. It became less irritated, but remained prone to flare-ups, and altered you indefinitely. “When Mom and Dad died, the thing that bothered me most was the unknown factors. I wanted to know where they were, if they were happy, and if they could see us. I never felt able to let go and move forward with those questions plaguing me.” He felt guilty and relieved purging the truth he’d kept hidden from Luka. With everything he’d taken on after his parent’s death, he never wanted to add to his worries.
“That’s why you suddenly got really into the supernatural,” Luka whispered.
Micah nodded. “I want to believe in everything we’ve been taught in church, but like a doubting Thomas, I need to touch the wounds. Leaving their fate up to wishful thinking never sat well with me.”
“I had no clue you felt that way.”
“Only Asher did.” Micah shrugged. The closest to him in age, and his one-time roommate at the condominium, Asher was his go to confidant pretty much his entire life. “We all dealt with it in our way. This was mine.”
“How can I help?” Luka asked.
The corners of Micah’s lips curved up. “You already are by listening to me.”
“Of course. I’m glad you shared this with me. It’s helped me understand you a lot better.”
“I’ve seen things that prove there’s more after we die. I no longer doubt that. Yet, I still wait. For what, I’m not sure.” He snickered. “I sound crazy, don’t I?”
“No. You sound like a man living on faith. The very thing you believe you don’t have enough of is guiding your every step. Trust your gut and see where this journey takes you. You’re past due for peace where our parents are concerned.” Luka’s words were encouraging. “What’s your next move?”
“I’m meeting with the team later tonight after hitting the public library to research the Claymore apartments and land surrounding it. Daize will try to meet me once she gets off work. She’s staying with me in the spare bedroom.” He mumbled the last line.
“Umm. How did that happen?” Luka asked.
Micah launched into a re-telling of the haunting.
Luka whistled. “That scenario is straight out of a horror movie.”
“It’s the most activity I’ve ever experienced personally.”
“And how does it make you feel?” He leaned closer. “Is it what you expected?”
“I think right now I’m still processing. It’s funny how we wait for things to happen, and when they do, we’re never ready.” He pushed his chair back and stood. The coffee break had run long enough.
“I don’t know, bro. I believe you, and I’m still having a hard time accepting your story as fact.”
“I have to get this case solved, so I can court Daize properly.”
“Court? Oh, little brother, you have it bad.” Luka nudged Micah with his elbow and the mood lifted. He felt better for the telling.
DAIZE
“The entity h
as never tried to harm you. It’s startled you and worked damn hard to get your attention. Maybe all it wants to do is be heard,” Micah suggested.
“They couldn’t be nicer?” Daize quipped.
“We don’t know how long they’ve been trying to be heard. It takes a lot for them to gain enough energy to do anything. Maybe you’re the first person sensitive enough to really notice them,” Carl explained.
“I’ve never thought of myself as particularly sensitive.”
“Are you intuitive?” Mel’s multi-colored hair had been gathered in an elaborate braid that hung down her back and contrasted with the black T-shirt she’d paired with skinny jeans.
“Maybe?” Daize said skeptically.
“Do you get feelings that turn out to be true?” Mel asked.
“Yes.” She nodded. She often creeped her friends out with her uncanny ability to know things. Her gut had saved her a million times over.
“Being sensitive doesn’t always mean seeing dead people. It’s a matter of being open and tapping into more than what we see,” Mel explained.
“Why me, though?” Daize asked, exhausted.
“From the research we did earlier, I may have come up with a theory.” Micah sighed. “Bear with me. Cincinnati was a bit of a catchall. We had a ton of immigrants who came and made a living here. We also had a lot of freed African Americans.”
“You think they’re black, and so they relate to me?” she asked slowly.
“It’s not a bad thought. Maybe the other people who lived here before frightened them. If they were from that time, it’s quite possible they would remain silent and hidden for their own protection. Spirits don’t experience the passage of time the way we do. They don’t understand things have changed. It’s part of why they’re often confused by people living in what they still believe is their space,” Trish said.
“So, what do I need to do?” Daize placed a hand on her chest.
“We figure out what it is they’re trying to tell us, and once the message is received, things might end,” Micah answered.
“Might?” Daize said sharply.
“It’s not an exact science. We talked about this.” Micah’s voice was soft.
“I know. I’m just ...” She exhaled. “I’m tired, and I want my home back.”
“We want the same thing for you,” Trish promised.
“The plan is to have you try to communicate with them. They respond to you.” Micah shrugged.
“Yeah, too much,” Daize mumbled.
“Are you up for it?” Mel implored.
“I have to be. Tell me what you want me to do.”
“We’re going to try to have you do an EVP session. Micah will be with you the entire time. You won’t be alone after what happened to you the last time.”
The words eased the tension in her back. “What if we’re wrong?”
“About what?” Mel asked.
“What if it does mean me harm?” Her throat tightened.
“We’ll be doing a house blessing. We’ll be honest. With a blessing, it could get worse before it gets better. If you do have a malevolent force.”
“Worse?”
“As far as hauntings, this one has been mild. You haven’t been scratched, pushed, hit, or given nightmares,” Trish said softly.
Daize covered her face. “Jesus.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have no reason to think it’ll go that way,” Scott reminded her.
“Are we ready to start?” Micah asked.
Eric looked up from the computer and nodded. “Cameras are set up and ready to record when you give the go ahead.”
“I’m ready,” Daize whispered.
“Let’s go over what to ask.” For the next ten minutes, Micah coached her.
Full of new information, she was ushered into her room. She longed to twine their fingers and take comfort from him, but she knew better. They turned off the lights and sat cross-legged on the floor. Hitting the record button, she spoke. “Who are you?” She glanced around the room, hyper-aware of the temperature and silence. They would not catch her unaware again. She paused for six seconds between questions to leave time for a response. “Do you mean harm?” The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The room began to feel as if it were filling up. Her heart rate spiked as her chest grew tight. “What do you want?”
The feeling of eyes on her, forced her to turn around. Her jaw dropped as a misty figure clad in a long gown with an apron appeared.
“D-Do you see this?” she whispered
“Yes,” Micah replied equally as quiet.
She moved to stand and found herself glued to the ground. Her eyes blurred. “I can’t move.”
“Me either.”
The figure glided closer and closer. The bottom half was misty, but the top half was semi-solid. The African American woman looked sad. She didn’t feel threatening. Still, panic rose through the roof. Breathing became more difficult. The ghostly hand reached out and touched her forehead with two fingers. Her body jerked, and the room faded around her.
She watched in the distance as African American men and women in homespun clothing walked slowly toward a large hole. Among the brown-skinned people, she spotted Caucasians dressed in various outfits she didn’t recognize. The ground shook and splintered. Dirt crumbled into a gaping hole formed in the earth. The people withered before her eyes. Bones protruded from the gray skin. Eyes bulged. The decay increased as flesh gave way and left rotting skeletons that pitched themselves into the chasm.
“Below.”
She spun to her left. A skeletal hand latched onto her wrist. She screamed.
“Daize.”
She blinked and found herself peering up a concerned Mel. “What happened?”
“You tell us. You and Micah just keeled over.”
“Micah.” She moved to sit up, and Mel pushed her back down. “Not yet. He’s fine. He’s coming around the same as you. What the hell happened?”
“You didn’t see the apparition?”
“No,” Mel whispered.
“Someone roll back the footage,” Brendon barked.
“S-She touched me, and it was like I was pulled into the past. I was in a field, and there were all these people, marching in a line. An earthquake split the ground open, and they moved toward the hole. They started to look sickly, growing thinner until they literally began to rot.” She winced at the vivid memory.
“Were they all African Americans? I didn’t find anything that mentioned a massacre,” a voice said from behind her.
“Not all of them, but most.”
“They were immigrants,” Micah croaked.
“A mass grave. Holy shit. I think we found another potter’s field.”
“Harry Potter, what?” Daize mumbled.
“If that’s the case, no blessing will help. They need to be acknowledged and laid to rest,” another person said.
“Does anyone want to clue me in on what the hell is going on?” Daize rose, propping herself up on her elbows.
“A potter’s field is a burial ground for paupers and strangers. Back in those times, African Americans may have been free, but many saw them as less than human. Therefore, they weren’t allowed to be buried in cemeteries.”
“That’s horrific. Why aren’t we taught this in class?”
“Because people like to pretty up history as much as possible,” Maria said vehemently.
“They’ve found a number of potter’s graves around the downtown area. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it.”
“Because our heads don’t usually go to mass graves,” Micah mumbled.
“Are you okay?” I glanced over to see him sprawled on the couch.
He nodded his head. “We need a machine that can look through layers and get proof.”
I’m never going to get my home back. Daize flopped back down on the couch and inhaled.
“What do I do in the meantime?” Daize asked, interrupting their excited chatter.
> “You can’t stay here. I know you’re tired of living out of a bag, but we can’t predict how the spirits will respond. We know they can touch you, and the whole dreaming while awake thing concerns me,” Micah said. The lack of warmth in his tone made her wary. Was he really good at acting in front of others, or had he gotten what he was after—an answer to a haunting, and a more intriguing case? Did I trust this man too quickly? Her head spun with unanswered questions and uncertainty. She liked her world with a fair amount of order. With everything turned upside down, she lost the center that allowed her to go with the flow.
Her muscles were tight, her head was so full it felt like she had cotton between her ears, and her emotions were all over the place. She was saddened by the way the deceased had been discarded like refuse, and angry that they choose to make her suffer for it. Lost in the buzz of excitement sweeping through the room, she felt normalcy slipping further and further away.
EXHAUSTED, SHE STUDIED Micah. He’d been odd since they returned home. The take-away dinner from Panera was ingested in a strange silence.
“Are you okay?”
“Huh?” Micah glanced up. “Yeah. Just a lot on my mind.”
“Yeah. Do you want to talk about what you saw?”
“No,” he barked. She jerked. “I’m sorry, Daize. I guess I’m still spooked,” he admitted bashfully.
“I get it.” She forced a smile. His answer sounded disingenuous. Suddenly uneasy, she stood. “I’m going to get ready for bed, and then crash. I feel a headache trying to come on, and I need to function at work tomorrow.”
“Do you need anything?”
“You’ve done plenty.”
He arched his eyebrow. Had her irritation slipped out? Good. She turned from him, refusing to look back as she climbed the staircase. Let him ponder on why she was acting differently.
Chapter Four
Micah
The scent of feces and sow seared his nostrils. Holding his hand up to his nose, he swallowed back the bile that threatened to rise as his stomach protested. Knowing Cincinnati was once the pig capital, and smelling it were two completely different experiences. The sun sank low in the sky as the squealing pigs were marched through the streets beside the empty field. Men and women marched two by two across the landscape. Smoke drifted out of the hole thirty feet away. He opened his mouth to scream a warning. No sound emitted.