by Debi Matlack
How many times have I told you young’uns to stay away from that thing?
I shrugged. Probably a million. Poppy shook his head and glanced at Mike with a little chuckle. “I’m glad you find this funny, old man.”
Mike glanced up sharply. “What the hell are you yapping about?”
Poppy nodded and gestured at Mike. You trying to tell him about the Sight? Remind him of the time I caught him climbing the chinaberry tree. I’d told him not to. That thing was rotten to the core and I hadn’t gotten around to cutting it down.
“I know, the branch broke and he fell. He was five.” I guess I wasn’t hiding it from my brother anymore.
Mike stared at me with a wary expression, concern and a metric shit-ton of doubt vying for control. His brows rode the crest of skepticism and headed for his hairline. “There’s no one there, Maeve.”
I met his gaze with a level stare and a long-suffering sigh. “I’m talking to Poppy. He’s telling me about you trying to squirrel it out of the chinaberry tree.” I looked back at Poppy, standing there in his workshirt and dungarees. “I’ve heard that story a thousand times.”
But I never told you he caught his britches on a stob as he was falling and it ripped them right off. He was laying there in the yard, gasping for breath and bare as a babe from the waist down, jeans and drawers waving about eight feet up, like a flag. Probably slowed him down enough so he didn’t splatter.
I snorted and laughed. “I bet you swore Poppy to silence about that! Bare-ass in the front yard!”
Mike looked startled. “Actually I did, but obviously he told you about it.”
“He did. Just now.”
“Again, I call bullshit.” Poppy materialized beside him and whapped Mike upside the head like he’d done a million times. Stop your cussing and calling your sister a liar. She may not have always told the truth but she is right now.
I saw Mike’s hair ruffle lightly as the familiar blow fell and his eyes shot wide open. “Maeve?” His voice had a weird note to it, an exaggerated calm with a hint of blind panic roiling just beneath the surface.
“That was him.” I have to admit, I giggled when Mike spun around, trying to see anything and everything at once. I could almost see his ears twitching, like a cat trying to hear something skitter through the grass. “Relax, dork, it’s Poppy. He’d never do anything to hurt you.”
“How do I know that?”
“So you believe me?”
“I don’t know.” He stood, rooted in place, staring at me. I felt kind of sorry for him. It was hard to have something like this dumped on you. I should know.
I turned and took a few steps back toward him. “Mike, it’s true. There’s a whole bunch of stuff out there that regular people don’t see and it’s probably best that way. But now I can see them and can do some things that I never would have dreamed before.”
“Like what?”
I chuckled. “That’s a conversation best held over a number of evenings and a number of beers.” I wasn’t getting into an explanation or discussion of psychometry, dowsing, auras, or scrying standing in the middle of an overgrown field next to what could be a portal to Hell.
“How do I know this stuff is real?”
The icy-feathers feeling, which had subsided when Poppy arrived, was back. I couldn’t see Poppy anymore, maybe he masked the feeling or maybe what-ever-they-were were afraid or respectful of him. Now the whispering grew more intense, even a little excited. Could be they didn’t get company out here very often. I glanced back at the pond. My gut and some deep instinct told me these were not a part of the whatever-it-was that laired in the water.
“Maeve?” That weird tone was back in his voice.
I sighed. Here I was, on the verge of discovering or seeing something and he was, well, he was Mike. I turned back to face my brother and stopped short.
He stood in a cloud of spirits. The shapes were only suggestive of human, mostly shadows, some more distinct, though any indications of the time that they physically existed were mostly gone. They reached for him, touching, clutching. Curious. Hungry for contact, for acknowledgment. His eyes were wide, darting around, trying to see. Now I was scared. I took a deep breath and called.
“I think it’s me you’re looking for.” Their heads all lifted, like a herd of startled deer, swiveling toward me. Then they came, flowing to me like fallen leaves on the surface of a swift stream. The icy sensation became more like razors than feathers but I set my jaw and let them satisfy their curiosity. Now it felt a lot like frozen ants crawling around under my skin, though I felt no ill intention from them. They seemed eager and welcoming, as if they recognized and had been expecting me. The word ‘guardian’ formed in my mind. Them or me? I did feel very connected to the place, which stemmed from growing up there, but I also felt a connection to them, even though this was the first time I’d knowingly encountered them. I was equally interested in them. Maybe there was an old cemetery here on the farm we didn’t know about. We were also dead center of the Cade’s Pond and Alachua culture areas, so these could be Native American spirits present for centuries. Maybe they guarded what was in the pond, or kept it there. The feeling of recognition intensified and I could almost understand the impression they tried to convey, though human speech had abandoned them centuries ago. Despite my sincerest attempt to understand, I was unable to learn anything further from them.
The sensation of dozens of voices buzzing just under my range of hearing got uncomfortable and I reached into my pocket to grip the iron nail I always carried these days, feeling the pressure decrease as the metal made contact with my skin. I guess they can taste it or something. I beckoned Mike closer. He was goggling like a five-year-old at the circus.
“So, I take it you can see them?” He came closer and I took his hand as some of the spirits turned their attentions back to him. His contact with me and me with the iron kept them from overwhelming us.
“I couldn’t at the beginning, just felt, weird, y’know? I only saw them when they were on you.” His eyes were about to dangle out on stalks and there was a mild tremor in his hand. “What the hell are they?”
“Spirits, ghosts, something along those lines.” Something about them convinced me they were much older than any European settlement and were therefore probably indigenous people. Or they had been. Now they were just vague impressions of personality.
Wide eyes turned on me. “And you know this because…”
I shrugged. “The things a hammer to the head will do to you.” He drew back and shook his head.
“Nobody hit me.”
I gave him a wry smile. “Not yet. Don’t tempt me.” The spirits were backing off, curiosity satisfied, or no longer seeing us as a threat. I let go of the nail. “Poppy told me it runs in the family. You’re just softer in the head than me.”
He let go of my hand experimentally and turned his head, looking around, then took my hand again. “I see them better like this,” then he let go again, “than like this. It’s like you’re an antenna or something.” He paused, staring at the pond for a long moment. He still looked like he was going to bolt any second. I gave his hand a shake, casting a quick look at the water, and he focused on me again.
“Now, do you believe me?” Letting go and taking my hand again, he finally nodded.
“I wish to God I didn’t have to, but I do.”
I sighed. “Welcome to my world.”
Chapter 12
Supper at Mike and Karen’s that night was somewhat subdued. If it hadn’t been for the kids being kids, the entire meal would have been spent in strained and awkward silence. Karen kept looking back and forth between me and Mike, the desire to ask just what the hell was going on plain on her face, but she kept quiet until after she and Mike sent the kids to bed. It occurred to me to sneak out the back door while they were occupied, but my truck is loud and I never would have heard the end of it if I ran away. Of course Mike could just as easily tell his wife what happened as I could, but I felt a se
nse of responsibility for shaking up his fundamental perception of reality. I cleared the table, loaded the dishwasher and was wiping the table when they came back in. Mike beelined for the ‘fridge, grabbed three beers and sat down, popping the tops on all of them and took a deep swallow before coming up for air. Karen still looked between us like she was watching a Wimbledon Championship match.
“Is someone going to tell me what’s going on? Today would be nice.” Karen’s tone hovered between exasperated and plaintive and I chuckled and nodded at Mike.
“Michael, did something happen today that you’d like to share with the rest of the class?” The look he shot me was pure venom. That only made me snicker and his face reddened. I took a deep breath and grinned at Karen.
“What Mike would like to tell you is that I, his sister, am a freak and can see and talk to dead people. Furthermore, he saw them too today, hence his strong resemblance to a rabbit in the hawk’s shadow.” At the reminder, he stole glances around the room, as if spirits were going to start oozing from between the floorboards. I’m not saying they wouldn’t, but I doubted it.
Karen snickered, clearly hoping that we’d yell ‘Just kidding!’ When that didn’t happen, her expression mixed caution with a tinge of amusement. She spared her husband a glance before looking at me again. “You’re… not joking, are you?”
I heaved a sigh. “I wish I were.” I looked at Mike and shook my head. “We are certifiably ghost-free right now, stop twitching.”
“You’re both certifiable for something.” Karen gave me a wry smile and took a drink of her beer, but her eyes shifted around the room as she tried hard not to peer into the shadows. Brows raised, she fixed me with another look. “Okay, let’s assume I believe you. Who have you seen?”
I ticked off my fingers as I recited names. “Besides almost everybody buried at the cemetery the past several months? Poppy, Mrs. Parmenter, Joshua Tjeltan, Old Mr. Reddish, let me tell you he was a hard one to convince he was dead, he was positive he’d never die, um, that kid that got thrown from the pickup a couple of weeks ago in Lake Sanderson.” My heart thumped hard at the thought of the next face in my memory. “And Marjorie Keene’s little girl, Abby.”
Mike and Karen stared at me in shock. Marjorie Keene was their high school classmate and Abby’s disappearance had shaken the entire community to its roots. The news had been full of the four-year-old’s disappearance two weeks before, even making the national telecast. Foul play was suspected until her body was recovered. It now seemed more likely that she had wandered away from her home, into the woods and drowned in Alligator Creek. A tragedy nonetheless and as parents, my brother and his wife were clearly horrified by the incident and the outcome. I was too, but for different reasons.
The blonde toddler first manifested just over forty-eight hours after she vanished. I heard crying, heartbroken sobbing that tore at my heart. For days I heard it around the shop, customers browsing unconcerned, before I finally found her behind a display of old bottles next to the store room door, sitting in a little heap, the skirt of her red dress pooled around her legs. Ernie curled next to her, purring up a storm. She had been missing for not quite a week.
“Hi sweetie, what’s your name?”
Her wide blue eyes fixed on me and she rattled out, My name is Abigail Keene, I’m this many years old, and held up three fingers, my mommy’s name is Marjorie Keene and my phone number is threeeightninetwosevensixthree. Can you call my mommy? I tried but the phone was too heavy.
I sat down beside her and reached out. My hand passed through her and my heart sank like a stone. I hoped, just for a second, that I was wrong. “Sweetie, if I can see you and nobody else can, then you are dead. Do you know what that means?”
Her sniffling slowed as she thought about it. I wanted to wipe her tears so badly. Like Mimi and Mr. Buttons?
I remembered seeing the obituary in the newspaper about Marjorie’s mother. She’d had a stroke that hit her with no warning and no mercy and for some reason, she was one of the few of the recently deceased that hadn’t at least done a drive-by at the store. That had only been a couple of months ago. My God, poor Marjorie.
“Who’s Mr. Buttons?”
Grampy’s kitty. He was old and sick and went to the vet and went to sleep. She frowned. Grampy was sad. Mimi went away and Mr. Buttons went to sleep and now Grampy is all by himself.
I nodded, watching her try to pet Ernie. Her hand passed through him but he still sensed it and purred that much louder. The sound seemed to calm her. It was doing me some good too. “I bet he was. He’s sad now, like your mommy and daddy are.”
Because I went to sleep?
“Sort of.” Explaining death to a toddler’s ghost felt like trying to catch soap bubbles without popping them. Possible, maybe, but damned difficult. “See, you disappeared and everybody’s been looking for you.”
Abby looked up at me. I was playing in the yard and I heard a doggie barking. I thought it was Shadow so I went looking.
“Is Shadow your dog?”
He belongs to Andy next door, but I like to play with him. Her face grew thoughtful. I was just gonna look and come right back.
“You got lost?”
Her little shoulders rose and fell. It got dark and I was scared. I thought I could hear someone calling me so I started running. I ran and ran and then I fell and it was wet and dark and… Her eyes went wide. I did go to sleep like Mr. Buttons!
I nodded. “I think you did.”
Her lower lip began to tremble and fresh tears ran down her cheeks. Mommy! I wanna see my Mommy and Daddy!
I never felt more helpless. I ached to pick her up and hold her, to call her mother and her family, to make it all okay somehow and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do except sit there and try to soothe her with empty words.
“I’m so sorry, baby, I really am. I wish I could do something to make you feel better.” I’m not even a mother, what the hell do I know about making a child feel better about anything, let alone being dead? Sure, my niece and nephew had their share of bumps and bruises that I’d kissed better, but this wasn’t even remotely the same. When my attempts failed, I always resorted to handing them back to their parents. An idea then popped into my head.
“Abby, sweetie, do you see anybody you know?” Hoping that all those movies and people with near-death experiences had been right, I pressed on. “Is there a light or a path or something you see?”
The random question seemed to break through to her and she sniffled, looking around, and pointed toward the door to my quiet room. There’s a tree and the sun is shining through it. And--Mimi! She leapt to her feet and darted that way.
I saw an impression of the sunset glowing through the branches of my painted tree, even though it was on the other side of the wall. The light silhouetted a human figure. Abby rushed toward it and the shadow became a slender grey-haired lady wearing jeans and a sweater. She knelt and held out her arms. Abby dove into them and the woman rose, holding her. She smiled at me and nodded, then turned away with her granddaughter and vanished.
I let out a breath I didn’t remember taking and leaned back against the wall, bumping the display and making the bottles rattle. Ernie crawled into my lap and butted my chin, making me bite my tongue. “Ow, brat.” But it was okay, the pain reminded me I was still alive and Abby had gone where she needed to and with someone who loved her. Her family still in this world might not feel the same for a long while, but I was okay.
“Maeve,” Karen sniffed, “you knew she was dead before the cops did?”
The question took me by surprise. “Yeah, I guess so.”
She leaned toward me, her gaze intense. “You knew she was dead, but they didn’t find her body for a few more days.”
“Again, yes. Why?”
Karen’s eyes blazed with passion. “Because you could have told them and given them closure! They spent days still hoping that she was alive, worrying she’d been abducted and murdered. You could have spared them th
at.” Okay, so Karen believed me and now thought I was the Ghost Whisperer. My mission in life now seemed to be, according to my sister-in-law, to soothe the bereavement of everyone who had ever lost a loved one. To my eternal astonishment, Mike spoke out on my behalf while I was still forming a reply.
“And tell them what, Karen? That their daughter was dead and gone off with her Mimi but Maeve doesn’t know where the body is or how to find it? That would just make her a suspect.”
I blinked. “Not a nutjob?”
He snorted. “You already are.”
Karen still wasn’t satisfied. “Couldn’t you find out where she was?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me to try at the time. And besides,” I glanced at Mike, “much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. If I called and told them where to find her, that would really make me look guilty.”
Karen sat back, taking a swig from her bottle. “I guess. It just seems like you should be able to help people with that kind of talent.” Karen always had a wide altruistic streak, as evidenced by my continual invasions of their home.
“It’s a friggin’ curse.” I pushed back in my chair. “I spend half my time trying to figure out if the voices I hear are real, that other people can hear and should I say something back, or cringing from touching something in the shop, afraid of what kind of vision it might give me, to worrying about people when I see a lot of dark color in their auras—” Whoops, too much information all at once. Karen and Mike stared at me like another head was sprouting from my shoulders. “Sorry.”
Mike tilted his head. “You said there was more—”
“And there is. And we’ll talk about it. Later.” Suddenly I needed to get out of there, get some space to breathe and think. I got up and rattled my keys in my pocket. “I need to head out. It’s getting late.”