Wings to the Kingdom

by Cherie Priest

Page 4

 

  Karl tapped the paper again. “But this—this looks like something you could sink your teeth into, doesn’t it? This is the sort of thing that you could maybe confirm, at least some of the little details. ”

  “Maybe. ” I crooked my neck and examined the picture posted beside the story. The square black-and-white frame held a shot of a starry-eyed older woman with her arms crossed beneath her breasts. Edna-Anne, I gathered, even before I checked the caption. “I wonder if there are any pictures of this Jeremiah guy? Something you could show people for comparison’s sake. If Edna-Anne could pull him out of a lineup, that’d be something. ”

  “There might be pictures, there might be. And if there are, you can bet Tripp and Dana will dig them up. ”

  I started to ask who he meant, but the answer dawned on me before I could broach the question. “The Gruesome Two-some? Are they coming here to look into this? Oh, good grief. ”

  “What?” He brushed his hand to his chest in pretended affront. Then he said exactly what I should have expected from someone who’d never left the valley. “But they’re famous. And I hear that the people at the battlefield actually asked them to come out and look into this. Rumor has it, they’re going to bring all that fancy equipment and set up for a few nights. Taking pictures, and getting readings and things. ”

  “They must be working on another book. ”

  Dana and Tripp Marshall were such well-known ghost hunters that even I had heard of them. Their shtick had a one-two punch: She had left an engineering career with NASA, and he was a psychic who claimed to have worked for the FBI. Their first taste of notoriety came courtesy of an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries, and since then they’d made the rounds of every niche cable show and prime-time paranormal investigative special on the tube.

  “Did you ever read They Speak from Beyond? That thing scared the pants off of me. ”

  “I missed that one,” I halfway lied. I had picked it up from a display in a bookstore and made it through a couple of chapters before putting it down. I didn’t like the feel of it; the authors were trying so hard to sell the audience on the phenomenon that I wondered if they believed anything they were saying.

  People who already believe simply know, and they don’t feel compelled to proselytize. People who know tell their stories like Edna-Anne Macomber, with a simple certainty that doesn’t much mind if it’s mocked.

  “But why would they come here?” I asked. “Famous ghost hunters with a Civil War fetish usually go to higher-publicity fields like Gettysburg or Manassas. We don’t have ghost stories at Chickamauga, remember? And Old Green Eyes, whatever he may be, isn’t usually good enough fodder for big shots like the Marshalls. ”

  “Finish the article. ” He grinned like a maniac. “Something new is going on down there. ”

  “Karl, nothing new has happened down there in a hundred years. ” But even as I argued, I scanned for the place where I’d left off. “Well, all right. I stand corrected. ‘Since the Memorial Day incident last week, a dozen new sightings of pointing ghosts have been reported. Though descriptions vary, the encounters are all similar. Witnesses say that the ghosts either appear in front of them or approach them, and then point at a distant location before disappearing. ’”

  He barely let me finish. “You know what I heard? I heard that a couple of the park rangers were so freaked out they quit their jobs. ”

  “Did you hear this from the same source that told you the Marshalls were coming?” I asked, reading the dull concluding paragraph to myself and handing the paper back to him.

  “No, I heard it elsewhere. My doctor’s son had an internship out there, and he dropped it yesterday because he was too scared to keep going to work. And one of the guys who works here”—he jerked his head towards the barista counter—“his sister is married to one of the guys who keeps the grounds. I’m telling you, strange things are going on out there. You’ll see—they won’t be able to keep it page-three quiet for long, not at this rate. Before long, everyone’s going to know about it and they’re going to have to do something. ”

  I tried not to laugh, in case he would have taken it the wrong way. “And what precisely would you recommend that ‘they’ do, anyway? These guys are dead. There’s not a whole lot to threaten them with if they don’t want to leave. ”

  “I’m not saying they should be threatened, my dear. But it sure would be nice if there was someone hanging around who could just walk up and ask them what they wanted. That’s all I mean. ”

  “That’s what Tripp and Dana are for. Let the celebrities handle this one. I only talk to my own dearly departed kin, if I can help it. ” I felt a damp tickle down near my ankle, and I nearly kicked with surprise. Cowboy was sniffing at my pants leg. I reached down and scratched at his head.

  “Woman, haven’t you got a curious bone in your body?”

  “I’ve got a couple hundred of them,” I assured him. “With change to spare. ”

  “Then why not go on out there? Just take a look around and see what there is to see? You never know—you might be able to help those poor folks who can’t seem to rest. ”

  I could have handed him one reason for each guilty, curious bone, but I only offered him the most pressing one. “That guy who was leaving when you came in a few minutes ago. Did you see him?”

  “Yeah, I did. ” He said it with the exact same inflections as the speaker in the old Ray Stevens song about the streaker.

  “Didn’t look happy, did he?”

  “No ma’am, he didn’t. ”

  “Do you know how he found me?”

  Karl shook his head.

  “Neither do I. But he’s the second one this month, and I’ve got to tell you, Karl, I really, really hate it when they find me. There’s nothing I can do for them, and feeling sorry for them only makes them mad. ”

  I found myself flailing for something to fidget with, and spotting my coffee stirrer, I picked it up. I twisted it around my index finger. “I don’t want any more weird presents of baby teeth, or friendship bracelets, or tiny lockets with a first snipping of hair. It’s awful—and it’s not getting any less awful as they keep on coming. ”

  “That’s probably a good thing. ”

  “From a moral perspective, sure. But from a personal standpoint, it sucks—and I want it to stop. Or, at the very least, I’d like to keep it at a slow trickle. You don’t…” I paused to reconsider my phrasing. “You should see their faces. There’s this split second when they figure out all at once that I’m not going to tell them what they want to hear. ”

  I swallowed, and stuffed the coffee stirrer into my mouth, pinching it between my teeth. “And you realize, don’t you, that if I were to get mixed up with these high-profile spook hunters, it would only get worse. ”

  “I get it. A whole lot worse, maybe. ”

  “Maybe. ” We both sat quietly for a minute, him fussing with the paper’s corner and me nibbling the small brown straw down to a frayed, flattened bit of trash. “Sometimes I think maybe I ought to leave, and go someplace where people don’t know about me at all. It might be easier. Or better. I don’t know. ”

  He reached around the table and patted at my knee. “Aw, don’t say that. The brain-drain around here is bad enough; we don’t need all the beauty leaving the valley, too. But you know, you wouldn’t have to get involved with those two old crazies if you didn’t want to. You could still poke around a little, see what’s up for yourself. ”

  “Or for you?”

  “Or for me, sure. You’re always welcome to go exploring for me. I’d love to sneak on out there myself, but these days…” He stopped and caught himself before the words went slow or sad. He laughed instead, slapping at the arm of his chair. “These days I’d need one hell of an extension cord, wouldn’t I?”

  “A cord, or a jet pack strapped to the back of that thing. You could run down Old Green Eyes and ask him yourself what’s going on out there.
”

  He laughed harder then, and Cowboy’s tail thumped an optimistic beat against my shin. “A jet pack! And maybe a couple of pairs of roller skates for Cowboy so I could pull him along behind me—but then again, he’d probably just ride in my lap like a big baby. You should’ve seen him at the Riverbend fireworks this year. He spent the whole thing with his nose buried under my arm. Oh, hang on—I’ve run dry. Let me grab a refill. ” He took his foam cup in one hand and gripped the wheelchair’s joystick with the other and swiveled himself away from me.

  Despite the fact that Karl’s destination was less than six feet away, Cowboy took it upon himself to rise and dash after him.

  While Karl busied himself at the counter, pumping on the air pots, I fiddled with the newspaper. He was right, and it was a damn good story.

  I checked the last paragraph again and failed to see any mention of Tripp and Dana Marshall, so there was still hope that Karl’s sources had been incorrect on that final point. I didn’t have a solid reason to dislike the Marshalls so hard sight unseen, but that didn’t stop me. I hated the thought of them coming to Chattanooga, bringing their cameras and spotlights and publicity crews.

  Interacting with ghosts was something to be done quietly, and in private if possible—or so I liked to think. As awkwardly as I sometimes handled my strange abilities, I tried to take them seriously; and it made me uncomfortable to watch others treat my poorly guarded secret like a well-paying parlor trick.

  Then again, my reservations may have been as simple as an old-fashioned distrust of outsiders. But if rumor proved true and they were on their way, I would get my chance to see if my suspicion was warranted.

  3

  Home Sweet

  “Professional jealousy, that’s what it is,” Dave joked.

  “I beg your pardon?”