The fog, a living breathing thing, seemed to nod. It understood. “Come with me,” it seemed to chant. “Come down to me and you'll be a part of me. You'll never feel this way again. You'll know more power than ever possible in this life.”
And for a brief moment she considered it. She saw the uselessness of her life, the fact that she was an orphan in the world who had never truly been loved for who she was, but what she offered others. And she wanted to go to it.
But then she heard the humming. Someone had taken up the words to “Barbara Allen” and was singing it, someone walking through the open meadow. Taryn could see a flash of hair, a wayward ribbon streaming from a bonnet. “Oh Mother oh Mother, go make my bed,” Evelyn sang sweetly. “Make it both long and narrow...”
Taryn shook her head, chasing off the bad thoughts and feelings with one movement. The fog retreated then and grew smaller. It was angry with her and scratched at her legs with its nails of barbed wire, but it slithered away, retreating.
The long, pale arm appeared then, as it did before. It waved helplessly from the hole, the painful moans circulating around her. He was beyond help, and perhaps shouldn't have been helped at all. She couldn't save Morgan and didn't want to. Julius, or maybe even Evelyn herself, had killed him a long time ago.
But another figure appeared then, one who stood opposite her. This one did not appear to see her or know she was there at all. Instead, this small, lithe body stood looking down at the ground, rivers of blood streaming down his skinny little arms and legs. He was covered with it, from the top of his curly blond hair to the tips of his old-fashioned shoes. He was a child, but the look of disgust on his face was purely adult.
With one fluid movement, Edward raise the ice pick in the air and threw it as hard as he could, the point slicing Taryn as it flew through her and tumbled into the pit. She felt a stinging where the object had touched her heart.
Edward was smiling now, something grim and satisfied, and walked away.
Chapter 21
“I'm okay,” Taryn insisted. “I actually feel a little energized.
Matt frowned at her, his normally smooth olive face lined with worry. “I don't know about that. I feel that with every time this happens to you it's eating away at something. Maybe I'm just overreacting.”
This time it had been different, Taryn knew. But she didn't want to get into that with him.
“The painting are finished,” she said brightly, changing the subject. “I might have to put a few more touches on them tomorrow but I think they’re done.”
“Well, that's good.” But he didn't look convinced. In fact, he was looking at her like she'd grown two heads.
“I can't forget the blood on his face, on his arms and legs,” Taryn said at last. “He didn't look scared or guilty. He looked...proud, almost.”
“It was his sister after all,” Matt relented. “But, man. I guess he didn't learn to be peaceful here.”
“I think it happened more than once. And Matt? There was more.”
“What else did you see?”
Taryn hesitated. “It wasn't tonight, but when Melissa was over here visiting she used Miss Dixie and took a picture after I fell and dislocated. Julius was there. Of course, we thought he was Morgan at the time...Anyway, seeing me on the ground, crying, I think it confused him. He thought I was Evelyn and he...” She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Just remembering it made her flush a little from embarrassment.
“He did what? He came onto you?” Matt pressed.
Why, he's jealous of a ghost, Taryn thought in surprise.
“No, no. He d-delivered my baby.”
Matt's mouth dropped open in surprise.
“I know, it sounds crazy. Believe me, if you'd been there it wouldn't have been any less crazy. But the baby wasn't alive when it was born. He had this terrible look of grief on his face.” Taryn shuddered just thinking about it.
“Oh dear,” Matt murmured. “That's awful. And he really is the park's protector. Although he seems to have taken a unique liking to you. The fire, the fall...”
“Why do you think that is?” Taryn asked.
“Maybe because you can see him, sense him. Or maybe he really does think you're Evelyn.”
“I don't look anything like her,” Taryn mused, taking a chunk of her red curly hair and studying it. Evelyn had been a small, lithe brunette with a creamy complexion and sweet face. Taryn was thin enough but she was soft, neither fat nor delicate. Her hair hung down to her waist and alternated between being lush, thick, and silky to being frizzy and limp. She played around with cutting it off but liked wearing it in a ponytail and braid too much.
“I don't mean physically,” Matt explained. “But you can see him and feel him. You're good at observing people. She must have been, to be a teacher. And you're both orphans.”
He stopped then and closed his eyes. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring your parents up.”
“Evelyn wasn't an orphan, though. Her parents were here.”
“There are different ways of being orphaned. She was abandoned to the world here by the people who brought her into it. And he didn't have anyone himself.”
“Like us,” Taryn pointed out quietly.
“Like us.”
Something deep in the night woke Taryn up but she'd never remember what it was. She rose out of bed, slipped on her house shoes and bathrobe, and tiptoed to the window as though sleepwalking. She wasn't surprised to see Evelyn on the lawn, her long hair flying behind her, void of her bonnet. She wasn't dancing this time, or singing. She was struggling to walk now, her legs moving slowly with the effort. Taryn recognized the pain on the other woman; it's how she often walked herself.
She watched as Evelyn detoured around the schoolhouse and headed to her side of the park. As she grew closer, the soft glow around her body nearly as bright as the lighting bugs, Taryn could see that she hand a hand placed firmly on her stomach. The small mound was barely detectable through the pale nightgown, but Taryn was sure someone would've noticed. Another woman, maybe. It was difficult to hide those things, even in the loose-fitting dresses back then (the Shaker clothing was out of style even for its own time period).
Evelyn would've lived with other women, worked with other people in the order every day. You didn't get alone time as a Shaker. There wasn't a lot of isolation, at least literally so. She must have had friends, mentors, someone...
And yet now she was alone, creeping through the grass with struggle, shaking hands alternating between rubbing the small of her back and stomach. From time to time she stopped, her face contorting with a painful grimace, and then moved on, each time a little more slowly.
She was in labor and all by herself. Taryn could think of few things sadder.
She wanted to go down to her, to help her, even though she knew the outcome and had no idea how to help a birthing ghost. She would've gone, too, but the moment Evelyn neared the barn closest to Taryn's building she dissipated into the air, her ghostly tribulations over with for the moment.
Taryn was not going back to bed, however.
Now, as though pushed by an invisible force, she moved to her supplies. Ignoring her paints, brushes, and extra canvas she pulled out her sketch pad and a charcoal. Sitting in a pool of light formed by the moon shining in through the window, Taryn began to draw.
The hands that created the lines were hers in that she could see them and feel them. The images she created were someone else’s.
She drew with a frenzy, going on for hours without stopping for bathroom break or drink. Within minutes she would fill a page and turn to the next, urged forward by an unseen force hell-bent on telling its story. Sweat broke out along her forehead, pooled under her arms and ran down her back and chest. Her mouth dried out, her lips cracked and bled. Several times her vision wavered, grew blurry, and she was all but blinded. Still, she didn't stop. She wasn't finished.
Though her hands and arms tingled and burned, and her back stiffened from her hunched
-over position on the floor, she drew with a mania she'd never known. The voices of the past grew around her, the sounds of singing, dancing, feet banging on the floor. Snippets of songs flew past her, small birds seeking an exit and battering themselves against the walls and windows in the process. Laughter, chanting in prayer, crying, moaning, pleading...the Shakers were alive in the room with her, their history engulfing her and smothering her until she could barely breathe. She panted, her heart racing and threatening to jump right out of her chest, and her blood ran cold.
Nearly delirious by the time she finished, with one final stroke she completed the last drawing and then tossed the sketchpad to the floor in exhaustion. She'd filled almost twenty pages of highly detailed images. The room was quiet at last.
“Taryn?” Matt asked groggily. The sketchpad hitting the floor had woken him up. “You okay?”
She couldn't answer.
“What's wrong?”
The sight of her sitting in the floor, her eyes wild, her face pale, and her mouth slacked open would haunt him for the rest of his life, although Taryn would never know that.
“Oh God! What's wrong?” He was at her side in two seconds flat, smoothing her hair back from her forehead, gathering her in his arms and rocking her back and forth. “Baby, are you okay? What happened?”
She still couldn't speak but was able to lift her hand with effort and point to her discarded sketchpad. When he turned and saw the thing she pointed out he nodded and her arm fell limply back into her lap.
Shifting her, Matt pulled her onto his knee and then reached forward, grabbing the binder with his free hand. Neither spoke as he opened it and began to flip through.
The first few sketches were general landscapes she'd done upon arrival. There were sketches of the meeting house, Centre Family Dwelling, several of the barns, a re-enactor at the spinning wheel, another one churning butter. Matt smiled at them and the care she'd taken, despite the fact nobody would ever see them but her.
There were perhaps half a dozen of these first ones and they were all drawn lightly, some with charcoal and some with colored pencils. She took her time with shading, details, and depth. Some were good enough to sell. And then he got to the recent ones.
There was a young girl, holding the hand of a woman with a stern but compassionate face. The little girl was crying, the tears streaming down her face, her small arms outstretched towards a tall, broad-shouldered man. Without compassion he was walking away from her, his back turned, his eyes forward.
And then a young woman, lying in bed, blanket brought up and covering most of her face. A lantern glowed beside her, shedding a tiny amount of light on the book she had clearly sneaked under the covers with her.
The woman a little older now, standing in a classroom, smiling at the children, her face radiant. A young man peered into the schoolhouse window, watching her adoringly.
Dinnertime, long tables full of Shakers who were eating quietly, ignoring those around them. They looked down at their plates of food, lost in their worlds, except for the young man and woman. On different ends of the dining room but both looked up, caught the other's eyes. Small smiles.
Standing together in a field of corn, hands on a stalk. Nervousness etched on the man's face, excited fear. Compassion and love on the woman's, her hand covering his.
Dancing in the meetinghouse. Feet flying so fast they were a blur. The woman with her head thrown back with laughter, elation on her face. Her bonnet broken, a ribbon alight. But someone new in this picture. Hardened features, stern, gaunt. His eyes bore into her from a window upstairs. She didn't know.
A classroom, desks overturned. A clay vase smashed on the floor. The woman a panicked animal, trapped against the wall. There was no face, no body, no legs...only tangled hands that grasped at her, tore.
And the last one. Sitting by the river, water racing below. A hand on her stomach, but not her own. The young man knelt with her eyes closed.
Shakers rarely prayed aloud; they didn't believe that God needed to hear spoken words and thought that communicating with Him through silent pleas worked just as well. They wanted to “walk with God” like they might a friend. Still, it was clear in the last image that both were deep in meditation.
Matt went through these, one by one, and when he was finished he looked up and searched Taryn's face. Her breathing had returned to a few breaths short of normal and now she fell against him limply. Something angry and foul beat against the window outside, something trying to claw or scratch its way in. They both ignored it. Nothing could touch her when she was with Matt; they created a wall together. It's what they did.
“I need to get you back to bed,” Matt whispered. “Come on, try to stand.”
Taryn let him help her up but then she made no act of moving forward. “I’m not finished,” she said. “There was one more. It's not finished.”
He realized then, that she was still halfway in the trance state she'd drawn in. She still felt like she was sleepwalking; she had no recollection of doing any of the sketches.
Still in her house shoes, Taryn walked towards her door and turned the locks. “Taryn? Where are you going?”
She didn't speak, just turned and looked at him with sadness. Matt was too innocent, too trusting. He really didn't belong in a world where such bad things happened.
She was down the stairs and out the door before Matt knew what was happening. “At least let me get the flashlight!” he hollered. She walked on, but slowed down a little.
The pond was up ahead and as they moved through the thick night she thought of the stories of the babies who had supposedly been discarded in it. For a moment she thought she could even hear their cries, the small mews of little ones in distress. But it was just a trick of her mind. There were no babies in the pond; that was an urban legend.
Already at the maple tree by the bench when Matt caught up with her, Taryn was kneeling on the soft earth, the dirt smearing her knees and caking under her bare feet. Somewhere along the way she'd lost her house shoes. With her hands she was digging into the earth under the tree, her nails breaking down to the quick and bleeding. Blood was mixed in with the soil now and she smeared some across her face when her hair fell into her eyes.
“Good Lord, Taryn,” Matt yelped. “What are you doing?”
“I have to,” she replied strangely, in a voice she didn't recognize as her own.
“Well, here, at least use a rock or something,” he offered her a shard of limestone. While she continued to dig, now with something stronger, he looked for his own makeshift shovel and found one in a thick tree branch. Together, sweating and cursing, they dug past the top layer, pulling up sod, and then tugged at the wiry roots. Taryn heard rather than felt something pop first in her shoulder and then in her knee but kept on digging, oblivious to the dull pain.
She was the first to feel the brittle hardness. “Wait!” Taryn cried, motioning Matt to stop. He laid his tree branch aside and dusted his hands off on his pajama pants. They were streaked with mud, dirt, and grass stains but for once he didn't seem to mind.
“What did you find?” he asked, a little nervously.
“Let me see your flashlight,” Taryn demanded. It was the most she'd said in over an hour.
The pale rays of sunrise were starting to lighten up the sky, giving it a smoky appearance. In the field behind them the cattle brayed and chickens chattered. They barely noticed these things.
Taryn gently shone the bright light into the small hole she'd made. Although she'd already felt it with her hands, she still startled a little at the small skull that looked back at her, empty eye sockets blank.
Her instinct was to reach in and pick it up, cradle the small bones in her arms the same way Julius did. Matt stopped her, though, and gently pulled her hand away. He didn't let go. “It's old, Taryn. Touching it might damage it. We need to call someone.”
She indicated her approval with a small smile.
While Matt stepped away and rang up Guest Services,
Taryn stayed under the tree with the tiny skeleton. It was the only sunrise he had ever known.
Chapter 22
The night desk worker at Shaker Town had received a lot of strange calls during his seventeen years at the park. He'd had people get lost on the trails after a midnight run, get trapped on the roof of their building (he didn't ask), get caught getting busy in one of the buildings they'd sneaked into, and even die. He'd seen food poisonings, broken bones, faintings, marital spats, and custody battles take place right there in the middle of the meetinghouse.
It was the first time anyone had ever called in a skeleton.
They weren't sure whether to call a morgue, ambulance, or museum. It was a confusing time for everyone, with most of the people called to the scene standing around with hands in pockets. When one of the paramedics saw Taryn's blood-streaked face, scratched-up hands, and small dislocations there had been an audible sigh of relief–they knew how to fix those things.
Now Taryn and Matt sat on a bench in front of the meetinghouse. Lydia's beautiful, rich voice was replaced by someone who still had power but lacked the passion. They listened to her sing the old songs about simplicity, however, and waited. They were both too tired to go to bed, even though they'd been up for more than twenty-four hours.
The story was mostly complete now: Evelyn and Julius had fallen in love (how chaste it was remained a question); Morgan, in either a jealous rage or just plain meanness, had attacked–probably more than once; Evelyn had a baby that didn't survive birth; her brother Edward killed Morgan (either because of the baby or just the attacks); and the two of them left the Believers.
They still didn't know what happened to Julius.
Taryn was a celebrity now, with most of the park workers paying their respects as they sought her out. She didn't know how much they knew about the ghosts or what kind of role they'd played. They had to know a little since most made a point of saying, “At least now we know who our ghost is and why she stays.”
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