But that didn't mean I didn't get scared.
I'm only human, I used to tell myself. It's normal to feel afraid. But as I reached in my mind for the usual phrase, I had to laugh. No, I wasn't only human. I was just as much of an unearthly phenomenon as the creatures I was hired to pursue.
Not that it made the fear any less real. Each time I'd worked a case, I knew I’d have to face something otherworldly and potentially terrifying. Even when I knew I was going to see something, I still felt my heart rate rise and my mouth go dry. It was like watching your favorite horror movie and knowing the monster or villain was going to pop up any second. You knew it was coming, and you'd seen it before. You’d felt that fear before, but it still made you feel as though you were close to pissing your pants.
Slowly, making sure to survey every inch in front of me, I headed for the stairwell. The same one where Officer Jenkins had caused all the commotion earlier.
“Where are you going?” asked Elena.
“I . . . I don't know.”
Pushing the door open, I entered the main landing, vaguely aware that the rest of the group was behind me.
“What do you see?” asked Elena.
“Nothing at all. Not a damn thing.”
But I sure as hell could feel something. A kind of unnameable, indescribable, intuitive gut feeling. A sense that even though I couldn't see Clyde, I knew he was somewhere close by. His energy filled the space around me. It was so sad, so desperate, so vulnerable.
“He's near,” I said to the group as I descended the staircase. No one said a word. They just followed behind me in single file. The only sound was the scuffle of their shoes against the steps. The hag stone led me straight to the evidence locker in the basement level.
“Chief? Would you mind unlocking this?” I asked Alvarez.
He arrived beside me jangling his keys. There was a click and a clunk as he opened the lock, then the door fell open. We were immediately hit with a cool, musty breeze. It smelled like the air hadn’t come from another room, but from the world of the dead.
Taking my first step into the locker, I looked through the stone and saw a darkness like no other. It felt like I was entering more of a black hole than a room. It felt like all the energy in it had been sucked away through the drain in the floor.
I shivered as I walked deeper inside. In front of me, my breath hung in the air as my teeth chattered. Every single hair on my body was sticking up.
Clyde had to be in here. I could feel his presence. I could feel him drawing the energy, the heat, and the last glimmers of light to nourish his spirit.
Turning ever so slightly, I looked towards the corner of the room beside the empty shelves where the cuffs were left.
And that's when I saw it.
The slip of whiteness that contrasted so brightly against the dark. It shimmered ever so slightly, then disappeared out of sight, leaving me with my heart thumping in my mouth.
“Hey, guys . . . In here,” I called out, trying to keep my voice calm and steady. Everyone moved in closer behind me.
I held the stone up again, the warmth of its porous surface pressing against my eye socket.
“It’s okay Clyde,” I said to the room. “I want to help you. We all do. These are my friends.”
Gradually, out the corner of my vision, the white shadow returned. It took me a moment to make out the shape of limbs, but there they were. I saw hands clenched tight in despair, legs that quivered frightfully from below the knees, and strands of threadbare clothing.
I felt my own limbs tremble as I took in the sight of the ghost hovering in front of me. Taking care not to move too fast, I lifted the hag stone and my head higher, then a little higher as I prepared myself to see Clyde’s face.
I was surprised that it wasn’t fear that hit me first. It was sadness. In front of me hung a face so filled with misery, eyes that drooped with so much guilt, betrayal, and heartache, that my first instinct was to offer him a hug.
“Hey there, Clyde,” I said softly. ”It’s alright.”
The spirit backed away from me.
“I'm here to help you,” I repeated. “Everyone here is just wanting to help you find peace.”
The dark eyes opened wide with a mixture of curiosity and fear.
“You’re Clyde McQueen,” I said. ”Isn’t that right?”
He nodded, and I took a few steps towards him. He responded by taking a few fearful steps back.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” I said. “My name’s Agent Hawthorne.”
Elena and the others behind me could only watch me talk to the shadows. I’m sure in their eyes, it looked like I was talking to myself. Only Elena fully understood what she was seeing.
“Think he’s intimidated by us all crowding in on him?” she asked.
I turned back to her and the group. “Maybe. How about we give me some space while I talk to him? If you can sit down, that would be better.”
“We’re not leaving you alone,” said Carl. “Anything can happen to you.”
“I'll be okay,” I assured him. “I’ll shout if I need you.”
I glimpsed back in the direction of Clyde and saw he hadn’t moved. If anything, he looked too scared to go anywhere.
“Are you sure?” asked Elena.
“I'm sure.”
“Okay,” she said, retreating towards the door. ”If you think you’ve got this . . . ”
“I do. I got this.”
The group shuffled out of the evidence locker, with both Carl and Alvarez looking deeply unhappy at leaving me on my own. But I thought Elena was right, Clyde was intimidated. Sure, he was a ghost who’d been terrorizing the police station, but he was also a human too, or at least he had been years ago. That meant he had some very real human feelings. All it took was for me to look into his eyes to see that.
I looked over my shoulder just as Elena was the last to leave. She was backing out with her eyes on me.
“Be safe,” I saw her mouth silently in the fluorescent glow of her flashlight, then she was gone. The door clicked behind me, and it was just me and Clyde.
I turned back to face him still looking through the stone, and saw he was backed even closer into the corner.
“Clyde,” I said as softly as I could. ” It’s okay.”
The look in his eyes told me that he at least wanted to trust me, even if he was scared.
Slowly, he parted his thin pale lips and said, “You can . . . You can see me?”
His voice sounded like he’d been swallowing sandpaper. Slowly, he straightened himself up and took a step towards me. But in that cramped, damp room, it felt more like a mile. The guy was right in my face.
“Agent Hawthorne, tell me why you can see me when the others can’t,” he said. “I mean, really see me.”
“I can see you through this thing,” I replied, pointing to the stone.
“What in tarnation is that thing? Some kinda rock?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that some kinda witch’s device? You some sort of evil warlock?”
“No,” I said, forcing a laugh. “I’m from the FBI. You know what that is?”
He shook his head.
“Never heard of no such thing.”
“It’s a government agency,” I told him. “We investigate all kinds of crimes all across America.”
“The government’s using weird witch devices for solving crimes? Huh. Never woulda believed such a thing.”
He floated closer to me, his skin coming into view beneath my flashlight. It was so pale it was almost shimmering green. At certain points where his limbs grew thin, he was nearly transparent.
“So you’re here to help me, are ya?” he said. “I’ve been begging for help for years. Fucking decades.”
He hung his head.
“Sorry for my language, detective, but you gotta understand, I’ve been crying out for so long. I’ve been trapped in here and I can’t . . . I don’t know how to leave.”
He hung his h
ead lower, his matted hair riding up above the collar of his tattered shirt. Leather suspenders were slung over his shoulders, holding up a pair of pants that hung ragged and loose around his spindly legs. Beneath them, a pair of hob-nailed boots jutted out, beat to hell from years of wear and tear.
He rocked back on his feet for a second, deep in thought. Then he looked right at me, a glint of something shining in his eye.
“Are you here to help me leave?” he asked me excitedly.
For the first time since I lay eyes on him, his mouth twisted into something that resembled a smile.
“I‘m here to help you get to a better place. Hopefully somewhere you’re happy,” I told him. “And if we’re lucky, it’s where Li Mei’s been waiting for you all this time.”
Clyde visibly sagged with relief at hearing this. For a moment I thought he was going to cry.
“Oh, thank you Mr. Hawthorne. Thank you! I been here so long. You’re the first person I‘ve been able to really talk to.”
He shook his head in disbelief and laughed wryly.
“Can you believe that, Mr. Hawthorne? I been down here for over a hundred years and I ain’t never spoken to no one. You have any idea what that’s like?”
“I can’t even imagine how lonely that must be.”
“Oh it was. It was.”
He swallowed hard as though forcing down his sadness. Then he smiled just enough to expose his broken yellow teeth.
“I been tryna get someone’s attention for so long,” he said. "Been tryin’ every trick in the book.”
He laughed softly to himself and rocked his head from side to side.
“At first I could do nothing. I was just trapped in this silence. All I could do was watch what was happening around me like I was invisible. Suppose I was.”
He leaned back against the wall, exhausted and swiveled his darkened eyes towards me.
“I was stuck for so long with no one knowing I was here. Decades. Watched people live out their whole careers and then disappear. Saw so many things happen in this place. Saw it change so much. Don’t look nothin’ like what it did when I was buried out there.”
He stuck out his thumb and pointed it towards the wall. On the other side of it, only a few feet away, his material body lay in the ground. It felt more than a little weird to be talking to the soul of this man . . . especially a guy who knew his physical body was nearby.
“Man,” he said. “I tried so hard to get everyone’s attention. All I wanted was someone to let me out of jail.”
“You can't leave this building at all?”
“I can, but only to go there.”
Again, he pointed his thumb back in the direction of his grave.
“I can’t go nowhere else. I’m trapped.
I scooted closer to him and reached out a hand as a gesture of trust.
“We’ll just see about that, Clyde,” I told him. “There’s a reason I brought so many of my friends. How else are we going to bust you out of jail?”
28
Logan
Clyde was standing leaning against the wall with one hand. Tears were streaming his face, but they came from a place of relief.
“You can really help me?”
“Yes, but you have to tell me everything. I need to understand.”
“What is there to understand? I’m stuck here.”
“That’s true, but spirits don’t just get stuck in a place for no reason. Usually it’s because something’s keeping them from moving on. A feeling, a person, a memory. Maybe it’s a sense of injustice, or unfinished business.”
Clyde looked up and dragged a hand down his wet face.
“I got a great sense of injustice, alright,” he said angrily. “A mighty big fucking sense of injustice! It was injustice that sent me here and kept me here!”
He pushed away from the wall and started pacing frantically as though suddenly filled with pent up, angry energy.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We can talk about this. Just try to remain calm.”
“Calm? Calm?” he roared. “How in tarnation am I supposed to do that?”
He shook his head in disbelief and continued pacing.
“I’ve been nothing but calm,” he muttered to himself under his breath. “But I’ve just been getting angrier. Which I suppose is a good thing. It was my anger that brought you here.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“What I mean is . . . ”
He sighed, leaned back against the wall and tilted his face up towards the ceiling.
“It was my anger that gave me my power,” he explained. “At first all I could do was watch the people around me. They couldn’t see me or hear me or nothing. I was just floating through this building without any purpose.”
He smiled ever so slightly, his eyes still staring at the ceiling.
“But then I got angrier and angrier. At first my anger could move things. It could slide a chair or bang a door. Then I could make sounds. I could really scare the hell outta people.”
He seemed pleased at this and his smile grew wider.
“Like what you did to us in the stairwell?” I prompted him. He nodded slowly, his eyes returning to me. “You’re right, Clyde. Your anger worked, just like you said.”
“Fucking took you long enough. I been pissed for over a hundred years.”
He laughed, but his voice was bittersweet.
I stood up and slowly approached him like he was a wild tiger. The last thing I wanted to do was make him angry.
“What makes you so unhappy?” I asked him as delicately as I could.
“I’m unhappy I’m here. Why else would I be unhappy?”
“There’s got to be something else,” I said. “Something that keeps you trapped here. You mentioned the word injustice.”
Clyde hung his head, and then the tears started up again. They dripped freely from his face, falling into invisible spots on the ground.
"I just loved her so much," he cried. He slapped a hand to the side of his head then collapsed back against the wall. "I loved her so much and it's her damn fault I'm here! Being here was the thanks I got for loving her.”
He began to shake and I crept even closer to him. Pushing out a hand towards him, I stopped short of actually grabbing his arm. My hand would’ve fallen right through the ghost, although I could feel the cold emanate from him.
"It's okay," I repeated. “You can tell me more if you want. I’m here to listen."
His violent shivers faded into a slight tremble as he looked straight into my eyes.
“I know about Li Mei . . . the woman you loved," I prompted.
"You do?”
“Yep.”
He sniffed and held a hand over his eyes.
“You must think terribly of me for wantin’ to marry a Chinese girl,” he sobbed. “Everyone else did.”
“To be fair, she wasn’t a girl. Li Mei was old enough to make decisions for herself, even if the laws back then didn’t allow for it," I said. “I think you did what you did because you wanted to protect the woman you loved. There’s nothing to be ashamed of."
"But a man loving an oriental woman like her . . . it's a sin!”
I couldn’t help but sigh at Clyde’s misfortune.
“Not by today’s standards. The only crime you committed was being born at the wrong time. And we don’t say oriental anymore. At least, not about people. Li Mei was Chinese, right?”
Clyde nodded.
“She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. That’s why I asked her to marry me, even though I knew better.”
His bottom lip began to quiver, and then he burst into another round of tears. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and sniffed again.
"I loved Li Mei so much," he said again. "More than anything. More than life itself, I swear. I just loved her with every breath in my body, but she never felt the same way about me," he said. “She told me she loved me, but . . . it was all lies."
He straig
htened himself up and composed himself.
"I remember sitting right here when I saw her last," he began. "I'd just turned myself in for the robbery and murder that she committed."
He stared up the side of the wall towards the top of the shelves.
"You see up there? There used to be a little window with bars on it. That's where the street level begins. They filled it in a long time ago. I'd been told I was gonna hang the next day and I was sitting here with nothing but the moonlight coming in through those bars when Li Mei came to see me. When I saw her face, I thought I might’ve been saved."
"But you weren't saved."
“No. I wasn't . . . "
Clyde stared down at the space between his worn out boots.
“Yep . . . Li Mei looked down between those bars and I swear to God I was so sure she was gonna help me escape. But do you know what she did instead? Told me she was sorry about my fate but that she had to go."
“She left you?" I said, truly caught off guard for the first time since Clyde had appeared. I sent Elena an emergency text. I didn’t know if it would work, but it was my best shot at giving Clyde the peace he deserved. “Li Mei left you to hang for her?”
"That's exactly what she did. She told me what we were doing was a sin anyway. That we had no business being together because both of our families were against it. She told me her father had arranged for her to marry someone in San Francisco and that she was leaving Mariposa first thing the next morning. She was going to Chinatown to be with one of her own.”
His bottom lip started to wobble again.
“Clyde, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
"Felt like my heart was torn right in two. I'd known plenty of suffering in my life, but I ain't never felt a pain like that."
He fell quiet for a second, his eyes still on the floor.
"That was the last thing she ever said to me," he said softly. "I called it quits right after she left. Hung myself from the bars she'd wrapped her tiny little hands around."
The sadness inside him was so vast, so deep, it shone around him like a black aura.
Catnip & Curses (The Faerie Files Book 2) Page 24