by Debi Matlack
“ ‘Cause they say you’re just a no account.”
“Who says?”
“Granddaddy, for one.”
“Cora, your granddaddy has been dead for seven years.” Uh oh… Cora was like me, and she’d let it slip. I could hear the oily glide of satisfaction in his voice. “You’d rather listen to a dead man than talk to me? I’m alive, and I’m right here.”
His wheedling wore her down. She loved her family, but she never got to do anything the other girls did because Mama and Granny always needed help. What harm would there be if she spent a little time with a boy, just for a little while? He was good-looking and he wanted to talk to her. He was right, Granddaddy was dead and didn’t have any say over who she did and didn’t talk to. Her sisters and most of the other girls her age were already married, or at least had beaux. Cora only had Mama and Granny.
She followed him into the woods, stopping by a sinkhole hidden in the trees. His words were sweet at first, then insistent, then angry. He wanted far more than she was willing to give. She regretted her rebellious decision to follow him into the shade of the pines. She had to get home. He leaned in, too close.
“What’re you doing? Stop it! Get off me—” Cora drew breath to scream and was borne backward, the impact knocking the wind out of her, pine needles poking through her sweater and dress as she/we struggled. Broad, callused hands pressed her head back, covering her face. Anger merged into terror, then panic as she/I fought to escape, to see, to move, to breathe.
It was done. Accident or murder, her slack body rolled down into the sinkhole, the Bible lying open and forgotten at its edge, as the pages flapped in the hot, sullen breeze like broken wings.
Still blinded by the vision, I lurched from the chair, hitting the wall more than once trying to flee. I smacked my shoulder on the door frame, fell into the storeroom and knew no more.
I woke up, came to, whatever, to sunlight streaming in the clerestory windows that lined the storeroom ceiling. I lay on the big utility table, a decorative pillow with an embroidered ankh under my head, an afghan covered with shamrocks over my body, both from my inventory. Poppy’s Colt pistol lay near me, safety on, muzzle pointed toward the opposite wall. Ernie reclined regally on my feet, making it impossible to roll over.
“Move, cat.” My voice was hoarse and strained, like I had been screaming for hours. Maybe I had been. It took Herculean effort, but I managed to get myself free from the cat’s weight, gingerly roll off the table and onto my feet. I felt like I had been on a three-day bender and in a massive multi-vehicle car crash, all at once. It occurred to me that the store should be open and customers might see me in my nightclothes. But there was no one else to open the store, so, theoretically, my state of inappropriate attire should remain unseen. But still, the store should be open, why wasn’t it open? I pondered this deep thought with little comprehension while I staggered through the door into the main retail space. It was dark, doors locked, shades down, closed sign still in place with a hand-lettered note beside it. In an elegant freehand it read, “Closed for inventory.”
God bless Adam Bell whether he wanted it or not. The stairs were a daunting prospect but I took my time and arrived at the top without much adversity. I found my bed in much the same way a homing pigeon finds its loft and collapsed into it face-first, embracing oblivion a second time.
I finally emerged from my coma, took a long, scalding shower and stumbled over to Carrie’s just before she closed. One look at me and she parked me in a booth with a vat of coffee. The only improvement I could hope for would be to receive the coffee intravenously.
“Inventory?”
“More like a migraine from Hell.”
“You poor baby!” The coffee was joined by an equally massive bowl of chicken noodle soup, and I was grateful beyond words for both of them. Carrie’s overly solicitous nature wasn’t nearly as annoying right now as it usually was. A realization started to sink in about how much danger I had put myself in. Except, perhaps, from the most obvious source of danger, Adam Bell. It seemed that he had made good on his promise to Poppy that he wouldn’t hurt me. It was the vision from that battered Bible that had knocked me on my ass.
The coffee and soup started to work their magic and I was confident my status could now be safely upgraded from protoplasm to proto-primate. The Yellow Submarine closed, employees cleaning up around me, Carrie coming back to check on me from time to time.
“I worry about you up there by yourself at night. Nobody lives within a mile or two so if you ever got into trouble—”
“If I stayed at Poppy’s house I’d be even further from help if anything were to happen.” Carrie’s concern was hitting close to home. The apartment was the first place I had lived all on my own and I loved the sense of freedom it gave me. Plus I was lazy. It was easier to sleep upstairs, dash down and unlock the door in the morning for customers. Besides, Carrie didn’t know about the more non-standard, shall we say, security precautions I had begun to implement. It was amazing how much quieter the place got after a fresh application of salt at the perimeter, plus it kept the weeds down around the edge of the building. I had some ideas for more permanent safety measures. That much silver wire was going to cost me a fortune, though.
“Well, I worry, you know that.”
“I know you do.” I tried to pay for my meal and Carrie waved it away.
“Not one penny. And you’re taking the rest of the soup with you. I need to start a fresh batch in the morning. Tomorrow is cheddar broccoli day.”
“I’ll definitely be back for that.” I got to my feet, had a plastic tub handed to me, warm from the soup inside and turned to go to the door.
“You see that you do.” Carrie watched me go, face twisted into a moue of concern. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, why?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. You just sound different.”
I gave her a little smile of dismissal. “I’m just hoarse.”
“Maybe.” She was still unconvinced and I didn’t have the energy to allay her fears further.
“Thanks for supper, and the Jewish penicillin.”
“Anytime.”
I escaped into the deepening twilight only see a shadow detach itself from the gloom under the awnings. Son of a bitch. Now I sounded like Dean Winchester. No good deed goes unpunished.
“You’re up early, Mr. Bell.”
“I wanted to check on you, Miss Kavanaugh. You had a rough time of it last night.”
I unlocked the door and he hesitated, waiting for my permission to come inside. Technically, maybe he didn’t have to wait, but I was glad he did. It helped maintain my illusion of having control over my life. I locked the door again behind us. “I don’t remember anything until I woke up this morning. And then I went back to bed.” I put the soup in the refrigerator in the back room and gestured toward a chair. He sat down and I did the same, clicking on the lamp on the side table by my chair.
“Besides,” he reached into his back pocket and produced a wallet “I still owe you money.” I was curious; did he have a driver’s license in there? A picture ID? Credit cards or any of the other accoutrements of regular, not-undead people’s wallets? He extracted a thick manila envelope and laid it on the table. “Your payment.”
I left it on the table without touching it. We’d never discussed an amount and I felt it was better that way for some reason, I don’t know why. Putting a price on what I did would make it somehow legitimate, more normal perhaps. I never wanted to feel like what had happened to me was in any way normal or okay. It wasn’t, not by a long shot. The envelope would go in the safe under the silver pyramid and a sprinkling of salt for a few days before I investigated further, just in case.
“I suppose I should tell you what I saw then.” But no words would come. Images from my vision the night before assaulted me again and the fear was as bright and sharp as ever. In a fumbling effort to say anything at all, I blurted, “Who was Cora?”
Adam’s eyes went wide. He shot to his feet, grabbed my shoulders and dragged me upright from my chair as if I weighed no more than a rag doll. “You saw her! What happened to her?”
“What’re you doing? Stop it! Get off me—” The horror of the previous night closed over my head, drowning me in pitch black panic. I twisted free from his grasp and turned away, both hands clamped over my mouth to stifle the scream. “Oh my God, that’s what she said to him.” My words came in a harsh whisper. Any louder and I would scream, long and loud, the scream Cora never got to voice.
“Who?” He came toward me again.
I lurched away, wide eyes burning with not blinking, trying to see everything around me. “She never said his name.”
Hands up, he backed off. I reminded myself that I wasn’t Cora, that what happened to her hadn’t happened to me and wasn’t going to. It helped, only a little, but it helped. I realized I was holding my breath and I sucked in a noisy gasp, the words finally coming.
“She was going home after church. He called her from the woods. She was frustrated, having to hurry home to take care of her granny. Other girls her age were already married, she didn’t want to be an old maid.”
He paced a few agitated steps before halting and staring at me with a naked appeal in his eyes.
The memory of the vision engulfed me again. “She followed him into the woods, they talked, he tried to kiss her. She got scared, tried to leave, tried to scream.” The words tumbled out, otherwise I don’t think I could have said anything. “He pinned her down, covered her face with his hands to keep her quiet. She fought, fought like a lion, but… it wasn’t enough.” Now my soup threatened to come back up; I swallowed rapidly and tried to blink away the tears that burned like acid.
“Who was he?” Adam was close, right in front of me, careful not to touch me.
I had a lump in my throat that felt like a brick was caught sideways. “She knew him. Dark hair, blue eyes, stocky. Not fat, but muscular, like he worked, a blacksmith or something. I didn’t see much else.” My eyes were finally able to see him instead of the past. “Who was Cora?”
His eyes were pale glass but a fire burned deep within them. “Cora was my great-great granddaughter.” And I knew Adam knew who killed her, even without a name. To my great horror, I realized it was the same face I had seen when I’d opened that cursed trunk.
Chapter 11
I didn’t hear from Adam for a while. Things went back to my standard of normal in the store, even the spirit visitors slowing down. I suppose Nilda Parmenter was still acting as a supernatural traffic cop on my behalf. I kept busy at night working on new projects and going through the stuff from Poppy’s house, all of which proved to be innocuous and harmless. I sorted things out into groups for each of us, stuff I thought we would all want, reboxing things with little sentimental value to sell in the store. Things were quiet for a couple weeks.
Never a good sign.
Mike started making noises again about disposing of Poppy’s house and property. Whatever it was that bugged him about keeping it made me just as adamant to hang onto it. There was much more to it than just sentiment, something insisted that I not give it up, though I was damned if I knew what it was. Trying to express this to my skeptic brother without owning up to the fact that I was now Paranormal Central was a formidable task.
“I just don’t get why you can’t let it go.” It was Sunday and we were engaged in our usual Sunday morning ritual, drinking coffee and bitching at each other. We just happened to be sitting in the Yellow Submarine and Carrie kept shooting worried glances at us as we hissed back and forth like a pair of alley cats. Some people go to church, we butt heads. Sibling contention is our religion, at least between Mike and me.
“I just can’t.” Poppy had remained very quiet these past few months and I really wished he’d come along and whisper some valid argument in my ear that would convince Mike to drop the subject. What the hell good was a spirit guide if he didn’t guide a damn thing? “I don’t understand why you’re so hot to sell the place where we grew up. Get an offer you can’t refuse from a developer?”
I saw a guilty flicker and my blood flashed straight to steam. With a glance around to ensure we were not going to be overheard, I growled, “Over. My. Dead. Body.”
“C’mon Maeve, we don’t use the place, it’s nice property—”
“And it’s going to fucking stay that way.” I fixed him with a predatory stare and, to my utter shock and delight, he looked a little frightened. Good. “I absolutely refuse to allow some company to carve up eighty acres of prime pasture and woodland into half-acre starter homes and pave over our childhood. You’ve got a trust to keep it up, it’s not like it’s a financial burden to you.”
Mike regrew a bit of spine and returned my stare. “Poppy left it to me. Technically, I don’t have to say anything to you about it at all.”
I hated my brother’s guts, and the rest of him, right that second. To use that kind of threat was seriously dirty pool and I didn’t appreciate it one bit. I was so angry I clamped my mouth shut, knowing full well that if I started on him now I would probably get myself arrested for creating a disturbance. That was for damn sure. The disturbance I felt roiling inside of me was of Biblical proportions. Locusts and floods and frogs, oh my. Actually, he’d put me into more of a darkness and blood state of mind. I shot to my feet, scraping the bench back with a squeal.
“Come with me.” When he hesitated, I grated, “Now,” through my teeth. I dropped a few bills on the table and tried to ignore Carrie’s worried stare as we left. I stalked down the sidewalk and stopped to unlock my truck. Mike trailed behind, apprehension evident in his cautious step.
“Maeve where’re you going?”
“We.” I unlocked the passenger side and pointed at the door.
“What?”
“WE are going out to Poppy’s. I don’t know how, but I’m going to convince you not to sell.” Desperate times, desperate measures. He stared at me for a long moment, then shrugged and got in. The engine roared, dual pipes rumbled and I left a long, screaming line of rubber behind as we shot toward Pinehaven’s single traffic light.
Mike wisely kept his trap shut on the ride, not that it took much time. I shaved five minutes off a fifteen-minute ride and we were soon bumping down the long dirt driveway toward the house. My skin was literally tingling with… what? Adrenaline from the anger, or the ride? Was there more? It was as if thousands of frigid feathers just traced along my skin. It was distracting as hell and I drove past the house.
“Where are we going?”
It was a legitimate question, one that I had no good answer for.
“I don’t know.” The sensation increased and I couldn’t stand it anymore. Not adrenaline then. Something was reaching out, maybe a whole lot of somethings, I couldn’t tell. I stopped the truck along a track that cut across the property to a pond and got out. I shivered and started walking. I heard him following.
“You’re acting like a nutjob. Where are we going?”
“Am I?” I flashed a glance over my shoulder. Mike still followed, shoulders stooped, hands thrust deep into his pockets. He could feel something, too; he was hunched like a sick dog. The light wind gusted, rustling broomstraw and pine needles, almost masking the whispering I could hear growing around us. “So what if I am? Is it crazy to want to keep family property with family?”
“You wanted to sell the store when Poppy tried to give it to you.”
“Shit happens.”
We approached the pond, a round deep pool near the center of the acreage. As kids, we were warned to stay away from it. I’d thought for a long time it was because Poppy and Granny worried we might drown, even though Mike and I were good swimmers. Poppy never even used the pond to water livestock, keeping it fenced off to itself. All we were ever told was to give it a wide berth. The older I got, the more stories I heard, most of them of the spooky around-the-campfire variety. Stories of portals, of diabolical creatures that lived
within its recesses. With my newly enhanced radar system, I was beginning to understand those stories might have some merit.
“Like what?”
I slipped between the barbed wire strands and started to walk around the pond. Old stumps indicated this had once been woods; the willows and young pines surrounding it showed Nature wanted to restore things as they once were, or maybe hide what lay within. Tall grass made the walk even more treacherous and I stepped with care, head down, watching my feet while my brain buzzed.
Mike wanted to know what changed my mind. How the hell was I going to convince him that what I saw was real? Maybe he was right, maybe I was nuttier than Grandma’s Christmas fruitcake. Except I couldn’t mistake the frozen feathers stroking my skin, or the feeling of darkness lurking in the pond. Well, I never was one to beat around the bush. I stopped and faced my brother.
“At the risk of sounding like that kid from The Sixth Sense, I see dead people. And some other stuff too.”
He snorted. “Bullshit. Now you’re trying to play crazy so I’ll feel sorry for you.” But he shuddered his shoulders for a second, like a horse dislodging a fly. My money was on the probability that he was feeling those invisible feathers too.
“No bullshit. I saw Poppy in the hospital, and a lot more since then. Nilda Parmenter drops in once in awhile and pretty much every new resident at Pinehaven Community Cemetery has to find me and ask me why their family can’t see or hear them anymore.” I felt a sense of lightness steal over me, finally being able to tell someone, anyone what was going on. It was one thing to have strangers be aware of and exploit your abilities, it was quite another to share that knowledge with a family member. Even if Mike didn’t believe me, I was relieved to finally say it out loud to him.
“You’re so full of it. There’s no such thing as ghosts or spirits or any of that crap.”
I shrugged and resumed my circuit of the pond, though I kept well clear of the edge. It may have been habit, or a natural revulsion for whatever I sensed. I moved into a cold spot, but this was a familiar, welcome chill. Raising my head from watching where I was placing my feet to looking around me, I saw Poppy. He raised a brow and nodded toward the pond.