Ghost Wood Song

by Erica Waters

  I close my eyes and forget about Frank and Cedar and Mama and even Honey, focusing all my thoughts on the grief that can draw Jim back to our world. He’s already here anyway, so clear in Frank’s mind he hardly even needs my urging. But then Mama gasps and I open my eyes to see Jim standing in the middle of the room, arms loose at his sides, jaw set.

  Frank cries out at the sight of his brother, the sound something between an exclamation and a plea. “Please, Jim, please,” Frank says, dropping to his knees. “Forgive me. Forgive me, Jim.”

  Mama looks at me sharply, and I nod. I was sure before, but now she knows too.

  “It was that little bastard’s fault,” Frank says, his voice hardly more than a sob. “It was him. He told me—he told me you were sleeping with Marlene. He said he saw you together. That was the final straw. After all you’ve done, after all you’ve cost me . . .”

  Damn it, Jesse. That’s what this is all about—Jesse’s stupid lies.

  “Why would I sleep with your wife?” Jim says, standing over him, arms crossed over his chest. He looks more threatening than he ever did in life, like his anger has given him weight and power. “Why would I do that?”

  Frank’s face turns from fear to rage again, in the blink of an eye. “You slept with Shirley, didn’t you? Right under your best friend’s nose. And you were always looking for a way to hurt me. It wasn’t enough for you to be a lazy drunk who got Daddy killed. It wasn’t enough for you to be so sorry and so useless you couldn’t watch him for one day, make sure he didn’t choke on his own vomit for one goddamned fucking day.”

  “I made a mistake, and you never let me forget it. I made one mistake,” Jim says.

  “A mistake? A mistake?” Frank bellows. “He died alone and in pain and probably terrified. And yet Mama forgave you, Mama made me try to forgive you. But you knew I never could.”

  “You spent your whole life looking for a reason to hate me, Frank. Daddy’s death just gave you cause. But you got your revenge, didn’t you? You bashed my brains in. Aren’t you happy now?”

  Frank’s face twists in despair. “Why else did you stick around? You wanted me to hurt you. I know you did. I didn’t pay you shit, I gave you all the worst jobs. But you stayed.” Frank glares up at his dead brother. “You sonofabitch, why did you stay?” he roars. “You knew I was going to kill you one day. You knew it.”

  Jim shakes his head. “Even this—even this you’re blaming on me.”

  Mama lets out an anguished sob, and Jim glances at her, regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Shirley.” Honey holds out a hand toward him, her expression lost and frightened. Her lips form the word “Daddy,” but I don’t hear it over the fiddle.

  “Turn Honey away from this. Don’t let her see.” Jim stares at Mama until she turns around, hiding Honey’s face against her chest.

  Jim returns his eyes to Frank, and there is no pity in his ghostly gaze. There is only triumph. Frank was right—Jim has been waiting for this, even if he had to die for it to happen. There’s so much to people we never see, never even guess at.

  “You know why I stayed?” Jim says, his voice terrible. “I stayed because after all those years of torment, all those years of being kicked like a dog, I wanted the whole damn town to see you for what you are. I wanted them to see you for the hateful, jealous, spiteful bastard that you are. I knew you would show your true colors eventually . . . though of course I didn’t know it would be because you killed me.” He chuckles darkly, running a hand over his stubble. “And it was worth it. It was worth having my head bashed in to spend these weeks haunting you, tormenting you, the way you’ve been torturing me all my life.”

  Frank raises the gun and points it at Jim, the rest of us forgotten.

  Jim laughs. “You can’t kill me now. But you know what you can do with that gun? You can turn it around and put an end to this. Shady was right when she told you I’ll never leave you be. I won’t—I’ll haunt you until you can’t sleep or shit or eat or do anything without hearing my voice in your head.”

  The distant scream of sirens floats in over my music, and every head turns toward the windows. Red and blue lights flash from the road.

  “What about Jesse?” I ask, hoping to distract Jim and Frank until the police arrive. No matter what Frank has done, I don’t want to see him shoot himself. I don’t want Honey to go through that, or any of us. Jim ignores me, so I pitch my voice louder. “You were willing to sacrifice Jesse for your hate too?”

  Jim doesn’t even look at me. His eyes are locked on Frank’s with a fervent gleam. “I already told you your brother deserved jail, Shady,” Jim says. “I’m the second person that little shit has gotten killed. But even so, hell yes, I’d sacrifice him.”

  My blood runs cold. Jim doesn’t have any reason to lie. Frank is completely in his power.

  “Do it now, do it before they get you,” Jim says as the police cars speed down the driveway. He puts his hand on the gun and begins to turn it toward his brother’s face.

  This is what evil is—not some unnatural force, not demons or devils. It’s this right here—a man clinging so hard to hate it’s worth dying for. Worth risking the lives of his wife and his child. Worth seeing a bullet fly into his brother’s brain. Worth everything.

  As if in answer to my thoughts, I feel the shadow man slithering around me again, insatiable, eating up my fear and anger with a hunger so big the whole world’s pain couldn’t fill it. I recognize him now—I know who he is. But I’m powerless against him. Like Jim, I’ll risk anything. I’ll offer up anything in this world to keep playing my daddy’s fiddle. I’ll offer up myself.

  Yes, play, play on, the shadow man whispers, his voice filled with malicious glee. I do, pouring every ounce of agony I feel into the song.

  Jim bears down on Frank with merciless hands, bringing the gun only a few inches away from his brother’s sweating, anguished face. Frank’s arms tremble with the effort to hold the gun steady. Why are the police taking so long?

  I squeeze my eyes shut tight and wait for the sound of a bullet. Instead, I hear a honey-gravel voice that pierces straight to my heart. It’s right close in my ear, so close I can almost feel the tickle of his stubble on my cheek. I don’t dare open my eyes.

  Shady Grove, you’re stronger than this. You’re stronger than the shadow man. You’re stronger than your grief. You’re stronger than I ever was, baby. Stop playing now. Stop playing before you tie yourself to that fiddle so tight you’ll never be free.

  I know I lied, I know you don’t have any reason to trust me now. But I made that fiddle with all the hate and the pain and the grief in my heart, and because of it I lost my life, and all the things I loved most in this world. I lost you and Jesse and your mama. I even lost music, Shady Grove. That fiddle don’t make you play with all your soul. It eats your soul. It takes everything that’s good in you and turns it to pain and hate and rage. Stop playing now, baby, before you lose everyone you love. Before you lose yourself.

  His hand closes over mine, and his fingers feel so familiar I gasp. He doesn’t make me stop drawing the bow across the strings. He holds my hand in his, and lets me choose.

  I draw the bow away from the strings at the same moment a gunshot explodes in the air. The final note of “Omie Wise” fades with the sound of the bullet. Frank is on the floor, bleeding from a wound in his shoulder. Jim is gone, and so is Daddy, if he was really here.

  Then police officers are rushing into the room. They kick the gun away from Frank and survey the house, checking for more dangers. Everyone is alive and whole, even Frank, who groans loudly on the floor, still swearing at his brother’s ghost. “I killed you, I killed you, Jim. I won. No matter what you do now, I won. I killed you. I got my revenge.”

  Mama rushes across the room and throws an arm around me, crushing Honey between us. Aunt Ena follows, burying her face in my hair. We’re safe.

  But whatever’s left of Frank’s life belongs to Jim now. He’ll never be free, but neither will Jim. They
’ve bound themselves together in hate.

  Twenty-Nine

  The story of Jim’s murder unravels bit by bit. Jesse really did tell Frank that Jim slept with Marlene—he was pissed at Jim and wanted to get back at him. Well, he’d always been pissed at Jim. But he didn’t plan on Frank’s decades-long grudge turning murderous, or on being framed for the crime. He didn’t plan on Frank threatening to kill everyone he loves if he told the truth. He didn’t plan on Jim’s haunting and Frank’s descent into madness. Of course, he didn’t plan on any of that because he’s Jesse, and being reckless and selfish is all he knows.

  But he’s getting out today and coming home to us. Mama asked if I wanted to go with her to pick him up, but I said no. Even though all I wanted was to get Jesse out of jail, I’m so angry at him that I can hardly bear it. He didn’t kill Jim, but he still played a role in his death. His lies cost Honey her father, Mama her husband. I don’t know if I can even look at him, after all he’s put us through. And what else is Jesse capable of? What else has he hidden from me? Jim claimed his was the second death Jesse caused. I don’t want to think too hard about Daddy and what Jesse might have done to hurt him.

  At least Frank’s going to prison, and justice is shaking itself out, bringing everyone some closure. I do wonder if Frank and Jim could have reconciled—if they could have gotten past their petty squabbles and the divide their daddy’s death made between them, could all this have been avoided? Could Jim still be alive? A part of me thinks Jim was in denial about why he stayed near Frank all those years. He didn’t stick around to see Frank slip up and show his true colors—he wanted to be punished for their daddy’s death and he wanted Frank to make him suffer. Like Jesse choosing to stay in jail for Jim’s murder.

  All the other stories that have unraveled are just as bad as Jim’s death and Jesse’s imprisonment. Brandy and the wasps and my grandfather—that secret makes me shiver every time I think of it, and feel a strange shame burning in the center of my chest.

  Yet the story I’m most stuck on, the one that keeps me awake at night and sends me into the woods with a fiddle case I’m barely able to keep closed—that’s Daddy’s. He made this fiddle—not the instrument itself, but its heart, its soul. His grief made it capable of summoning ghosts and shaped it into a doorway for evil. I’m trying to hate him for that—trying to summon up a righteous anger for his lies and his weakness.

  But I feel the same thing I’ve always felt for Daddy—kinship. We are the same. I know we’re the same because I can’t give up this fiddle. No matter how many people it has hurt, no matter how much danger it has put me in. I can’t give it up.

  That’s why I’m in the woods now, kneeling on the warm pine needles with my hands hovering over the fiddle’s case, midmorning sunshine filtering across my skin. After a long moment, I open the clasps and stare into the open case. The trees sigh around me, the ghosts stirring in their branches. They are waiting for me. I know now they’ve always been waiting for me.

  I’ve somehow managed to keep the case closed these past three weeks, left the fiddle lying against its green velvet. I know this isn’t what Daddy wants for me, I know the shadow man will kill me if I keep playing.

  Daddy said I was stronger than he was. He said I could let it go. But he was wrong. I will stare this rattlesnake in the face until its poison stops my heart.

  Because there’s one more ghost I have to raise, no matter what it costs me.

  Mama went to pick up Jesse from jail over an hour ago, and once he’s here . . . This might be my last chance to raise Daddy’s ghost. I waited all this time because I wanted to be sure I could do it, sure I wouldn’t mess up. And maybe deep down I was afraid to call Daddy’s ghost, afraid that if I saw him again, I’d never get over my grief.

  I pull the fiddle from the case and ready my bow. Fear and love battle inside me, making my hands tremble. I touch the bow to the strings, and while I’ve never done drugs, I imagine this is what it feels like when you press down the plunger on a syringe, sending heroin into your bloodstream. A release.

  I let “The Twa Sisters” pour from my fiddle, dark as river water, deep as my grief. Almost immediately the shadow man’s pull begins, a heavy blackness just at the edges of the music.

  “Shady,” someone says behind me. I swivel, and there’s Jesse standing among the trees, his eyes on me. I didn’t think he’d be home this soon. After weeks of bureaucratic processes I don’t understand, I thought his release today would take hours. Or maybe it was hours, and I just lost track of time. Either way, he’s here now. He’s home.

  “Shady, put the fiddle down,” Jesse says, walking slowly toward me with hands outstretched, as if I’m a feral cat he’s trying to tame.

  A surge of anger floods me. I don’t play, but I cling tight to the instrument. It seems to cling to me too, desperate to hold on to me.

  This is the moment I’ve been waiting for—Jesse’s release. It’s what I’ve been fighting so hard for. But I don’t feel happy or even relieved. Because he’s going to take this fiddle from me. And it’s going to be like hearing Daddy was dead all over again, like having my heart ripped out a second time. And if he takes it, I can never ask Daddy what happened to him the day he died or learn how Jesse was involved.

  “Shady?” Jesse says. “I’m home. You brought me home.”

  Another voice whispers in my mind, seductive and sure. He killed your father. He’s the real reason your daddy’s dead—not the fiddle. That’s why he kept the fiddle from you, so you’d never learn what he did. I shake my head, trying to dispel the shadow man’s voice. It’s impossible to believe Jesse could do such a thing, but I can’t root out the thought. Not after what he told me at the jail, not after what Jim said.

  Jesse kneels beside me. “Put the fiddle down. You don’t understand how powerful it is, what it did to him.”

  I push away from him and stand. “What did you do to him, Jesse?” I hear myself say.

  Jesse stands too and cocks his head. “To Daddy?”

  I only stare at him, so Jesse reaches for the fiddle. Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve drawn back my hand and slapped him across the face. “Don’t you dare.”

  Jesse reels away from me, holding a hand to his cheek. I put my burning fingers to my mouth, shocked by what I’ve done.

  “He hit me like that once too, you know, when I tried to stop him from playing the fiddle,” Jesse says.

  “You’re lying,” I answer, another crack running through my foundation.

  “He wasn’t perfect, no matter how much you wanted him to be. You act like he was God’s gift to the fucking world, but he wasn’t. He loved those ghosts and that fiddle more than he loved us.” Jesse’s concern for me is quickly turning to anger.

  “That’s not true,” I say. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Maybe it was the shadow man acting through Daddy, whispering to him the way he does to me. The way he’s whispering now.

  “When I decided to stop learning fiddle, he wouldn’t talk to me for weeks. I was a child. And he gave me the cold shoulder.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. Jesse presses on, relentless. “He kept playing even though he knew it was hurting you. After I told him about the little girl who was haunting you.”

  Shock grips me like a cold, dead hand. I guess I should have put it together before now—

  Daddy knew his fiddle playing was hurting me, but he kept playing anyway. His need for the fiddle was bigger than his desire to keep me safe.

  I push the hateful thought away. “How much do you know about the little girl?”

  “I know you were having nightmares about her, that you were seeing her all over the house. You used to cry and say there was a dead girl in your ceiling. Then there were the wasps.”

  I shudder, remembering their wings brushing my skin, the promise of their stings.

  My eyes fill with tears. “She was his sister. Brandy. His and Aunt Ena’s. And their dad is the reason she died.”

&
nbsp; “What are you talking about?”

  “Aunt Ena told me. That’s why Daddy was so obsessed with the fiddle. He was trying to hold on to his sister.” Some distant part of me, which the shadow man can’t touch, whispers that I’m doing the same thing—clinging to the fiddle to keep Daddy close to me.

  Jesse’s face has gone pale, but he shakes his head. “Fine. Whatever. His dead sister. We were his living children, and he chose her over us.” He crosses his arms.

  The shadow man’s voice whispers again, sending chills through me, and before I know it, I’m hearing his words leave my mouth. “That’s why you killed Daddy,” I say, “because you thought he didn’t love us enough?” I didn’t mean to say it, I’m not even sure if I believe it, but it pops out like a cork from a bottle of cheap champagne.

  Jesse’s mouth drops open. “I didn’t kill him. I . . . All I ever did was try to protect you. Take care of you,” he says. “I didn’t mean for him to die, I swear. I just wanted all the ghost stuff to end. I wanted you to be safe. I was only thirteen years old, Shady, and I already felt like I was halfway to my grave. I wanted to spare you.”

  “Spare me?” I laugh. “What have you spared me from?” Not from Daddy’s burden. That’s what the fiddle is, however much I might love it. It’s my burden now.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Jesse says, his eyes desperate, pleading. “I took the fiddle when I went to stay with a friend by the lake—because I didn’t want him to play while I was gone. Because I wouldn’t be there to make sure you were all right.”

  He’s a liar. Remember how he lied to Frank about Jim, how he lied to you? the shadow man whispers.

  I shake my head, gritting my teeth. I feel like I’m being torn in two. “You’re lying,” I say to Jesse. “You wanted to destroy it. You always hated it.”