by Gaby Triana
“It’s the room I stayed in.” He raised an eyebrow. “Cold drafts, shutters opening and closing by themselves, the smell of smoke when no one around is smoking…”
“Yes, the same’s happened to me, but who’s haunting it?”
“That depends on what you experience. If you’re asking me, I think they’re all there…plus others we don’t even know about. Room 3 in particular is a portal of paranormal energy. Even the cat appears there without explanation.”
Well, that one I had debunked. Bacon and his secret room. I smiled to myself and cocked my head. “You’re eager to believe.”
“Ah, the healthy skeptic.” Luis smiled. “Look, it’s not just me. Countless of guests have said that ghosts haunt La Concha—McCardle, his wife, Susannah, Bill Drudge, the son-in-law…all of them. Maybe your grandmother will join them now that you’ve spread her ashes.”
He’d meant it as funny, and I probably should’ve been offended, but I wasn’t. Part of me wished my grandmother would join them too, so she could kick the ass of every single McCardle fucker who ever ruined her life.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” Luis reached across the table to touch my arm. “Sometimes I get caught up in the lore of these haunted locations. I forgot I was talking to someone who actually knew this family. My apologies.”
“It’s okay.”
These people.
My grandmother.
All my life, Nana had been my mother’s mother, my live-in confidant and caretaker, helping my mother raise me when she wasn’t able to. She’d cooked, bake, read to me, she’d make key lime marmalade in the kitchen. In later years, she got sicker and less mobile. Ended up in a nursing home. Our job was to keep her spirits up, so she wouldn’t think too much of her times here and the life she’d lost. It never occurred to me that she’d have such a complicated history.
My heart ached with a dullness I couldn’t put into words. Part of me wished I’d never have opened this can of worms, but now that I had, I had to know it all. Feel it all. Get inside my grandmother’s mind. My subconscious knew it, too, hence the visions through Nana’s point of view.
“Have you seen the ghosts?” I asked.
“I’ve felt their presence. They appear in photos as orbs of light, ectoplasm, vortices. I’ll see if I can find some and send them to you. McCardle is said to haunt the garden and grounds. They sense a negative energy. They feel angry.”
“How do we know it’s not my grandfather? I would be angry if I were him.”
“They see a tall man who fits the description of McCardle. Bill Drudge was shorter and blond, like you, and you’re right, he should be angry, but he appears to people as…now this is going to sound crazy, but…”
As he paused, a thought entered my mind. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. My analytical, skeptic mind would never go for an idea like this, and yet I knew it to be true like I knew my name was Ellie Leanne Whitaker.
“The cat,” I said.
“The cat,” he agreed, nodding. How did I know that? “He’s wary of everyone. There are reports of people seeing a man’s face, then when they blink, it’s the cat. This has been going on for years.”
“But Bacon can’t possibly be that old.”
“Is that the current cat?” he asked. “It’s been happening with cats on the property for years. Bacon, the tabby before him, and cats before the tabby… For years and years. According to some, it began with the black cat Leanne left behind.”
All I could do was sit there and look at him. So many questions, so overwhelming. “Is that everything you know?”
Luis sighed. “I wish I knew more about La Concha, but Syndia makes things difficult. Not exactly generous with family details.”
“Sounds like she’s hoarding info or protecting something,” I said.
“Or someone. Or a multitude of someones. Generations who’ve all harbored one big secret—”
“The death of my grandfather,” I whispered, staring outside at the light rain spattering the street.
“It’s a miracle she even let you in her house.”
I turned to watch his eyes carefully.
I had so many questions for Luis, but he didn’t have all the answers. I felt unfinished and anxious.
However, the ghosts might know. And if I wanted to hear what they had to say, I’d have to be more open-minded. I’d have to acknowledge that they might exist. Maybe all those times I’d seen them as a child hadn’t been OCD. Maybe they’d been real, and the meds had suppressed my ability to sense them.
Luis stretched. “Well, I better get going or my dog’s going to wonder if I wandered into a bar after work. Not that it’s happened before, mind you.” He winked. “Thanks for the talk, Ellie. I’ll see if I can go by tomorrow and help Syndia prep the buildings.”
“There’s something else,” I said, reaching into my purse. I pulled out the old key. “I found this in the walls of Room 3. Any idea what it might open?”
His eyes lit up with renewed interest. Treasure-hunting interest. He took the key and flipped it over in his hands. “No, but let’s suppose I help you find out…and let’s suppose it leads to a finding of the gold doubloon variety…will you share it fifty-fifty?”
From his charming smile, I knew he was joking. Mostly.
“Sixty-forty?” He tried again.
But I didn’t care about the gold. I only wanted someone to help me find the things that rightfully belonged to my grandparents, so my nana’s soul could rest in peace.
I extended a handshake. “Deal.”
ELEVEN
Luis disappeared the same way he’d arrived—by blending into the darkness until I could no longer see him.
I stood on Duval Street and looked around in the lonesome night. Only a few residents remained, hammering wood over their shop windows, while all around, blustery breezes ruffled up the palm trees. It was late, and I hadn’t thought about how I would get back at this hour. Even the closest Lyft drivers were an hour away.
According to my map, it would take an hour to get back to the hotel if I walked. I didn’t have a choice, so I set about in the direction of Roosevelt Blvd and La Concha Inn. I needed to clear my head anyway.
Nana, why didn’t you tell me?
Why did it take death to learn about the people we loved? It was eye-opening to know that a woman I’d loved all my life had been harboring so much pain.
The island was still awake with men working on last-minute shutters and women standing by, handing them panels, drills, or drinks to quench their thirsts. They watched me suspiciously, as though a woman walking alone at night the eve before a storm were a strange sight.
The coffee had woken me up somewhat, and now I felt attuned to everything around me—the swishing palm trees, the oppressive humidity, the singing frogs and crickets, the cats that eyed me from their porches, the distant sounds of boat horns. Residents rocked in their rocking chairs, enjoying the late night winds. The island felt like it sat in the front row of a rollercoaster about to take a plunge. I could almost hear conversations inside of homes, wives asking husbands what would they do if the storm hit harder than expected, ways they could earn income that didn’t depend on tourism.
Then there were shadows—dark shadows, dancing shadows, gray in-between shadows, and disappearing shadows. Some shadows seemed to follow me. Some appeared out of dark alleyways only to disappear when I looked at them head-on. Some took the shape of women wearing long dresses with cinched ruffled collars, bustles, and feathered hats until I tried focusing on them.
I rubbed them out of my vision, but after a few minutes, they’d come back.
Soon, the voices began. Muffled, at first. They could’ve come from second-story open windows or from deep inside the colorful little Victorian homes. But something told me they were around me, following me, begging for my attention.
You are blessed. Speak to me…
“Go away,” I told them.
Please…
…if you would only listen…
If I narrowed my eyes, I could almost swear I was a child again, and the voices were bothering me like they did most nights. Men, women, children, people I didn’t know, asking me to look at them, to help, to pass on messages. Gripping my head, I almost couldn’t take it. I was ready to put on ear buds to drown out the voices.
Then, I paused in my tracks, right there on the sidewalk. Slowly, I put the ear buds back in my bag. He was there again, my native man standing a few feet away, silently watching. Not menacing, just accompanying me. He was a full-bodied manifestation—of what, I wasn’t sure.
My thoughts, most likely.
I could clearly make out his near-naked body, cloth covering his hip section, and a net hanging from his waist. A fisherman. Same face as my dreams, as the glimpses I’d caught of him at La Concha. Clearly, he wasn’t tied to any one place.
But he was tied to me. “Who are you?” I asked. “Why do you keep following me?”
He wouldn’t answer, and I couldn’t stand here all night waiting for a silent Indian to tell me what he wanted. I broke into a fast pace, leaving him behind on the sidewalk, but whenever I’d turn around to check if he was still there, he’d be gone. Then, a minute later, he’d appear ahead of me.
“Tell me what you want,” I ordered him, feeling more and more anxious. I didn’t like this listening to ghosts thing, but if he had something to say, now was the time to do it before I lost my nerve.
I must’ve been about halfway to the inn, halfway to insanity, when more figures appeared.
Not all of them from the same time period either. I saw Victorian women, modernly-dressed men and women, and a few children. All of them had been hurt. All of them appeared misty and fog-like bearing touches of crimson. Blood seeping through holes in their chests, to red lines crossing their necks. All of them wanted to tell me how they’d been hurt.
“I can’t.” I shook my head, releasing the visions, and walking a little faster. Almost there, almost there… Each time I’d close my eyes and open them again, they’d be gone. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be a go-between to these poor souls, though none of them wanted to hurt me.
I thought I could listen, but this was too much. How did mediums handle it? I felt like I was on the edge of a cliff about to fall into a ravine. Reaching into my bag, I took out my pills and swallowed down two more. No water to wash them down. I tried using saliva to do the job, but there they were, dry and blocky in my throat. Did my mother know, believe that I could see them? Did she put me on meds to protect me from the spirits?
Because I could understand that.
I couldn’t imagine spending my life having to go through this.
The full-bodied visions went back to being just shadows. The shadows I could handle. As long as they didn’t ask anything of me, I could pretend I was on either side of this psychic veil. Right now, I chose to see them as nothing, so I could get home.
Home.
Hilarious.
After a while, I turned down Roosevelt Blvd. with legs burning and chest heaving. Well, what do you know…I’d gotten the ghost walking tour for free. Now I was almost back, and good thing I’d decided to walk the five or so miles from Duval Street, because I needed to crash hard. I needed sleep, rest deeply from overworking my brain all day.
When I finally reached the gate of La Concha Inn, I found it locked. With padlock and everything. “You’re kidding me,” I said to no one.
Did Syndia not realize I was out or was she deliberately trying to keep me away? I could’ve easily jumped the fence, but I didn’t want to break any rules or act like an interloper. I was a good guest and would behave like one, despite her making things difficult.
Tamping down the inkling of panic in my chest, I pulled out my phone, ready to call the front desk to let her know, when suddenly, the lock twisted and dropped to the ground and the gate opened by itself. A long, loud creak sounded through the stillness. I was almost sure Syndia would hear it and come out.
A gate had just opened by itself.
I swallowed hard.
Something sat in the walkway leading to the house, something small but big for a feline—Bacon. Golden eyes stared at me through darkness, exactly the way a grandfather would if I’d come home too damn late from partying. Tired and full of parental judgment.
“Oh, hey…uh…kitty?” I walked through the gate and brought down the latch over the post. Was Luis right and this cat really embodied Bill Drudge’s spirit? It was silly to think, and yet I sort of loved the idea. “Uh, grandpa.” I chuckled.
Bacon turned and sashayed back to the front porch, hopping up onto the railing. He was dusty and dirty, and I loved him. Somehow, he belonged to the house, this dilapidated wooden old house with more secrets than Scotland Yard. I reached over to pet him before heading into the house, when for a moment—I saw him.
My stomach leaped into my throat.
Standing behind Bacon in the foliage below, was a handsome man, the kind of wholesome, sunny face that could only belong to a young sea captain. Only he was hurt worse than the others I’d seen on my walk through the island. His red lines were different. His were everywhere—all over his body—like crackled finish on an old painting, though a large one stood across on his neck.
My heart pounded against my ribcage. I got a good look at him. Long enough to see a resemblance with my mother’s face and my own. And then I made the mistake of blinking, a habit I’d been doing all night to ward away the spirits. And so he was gone, vanished into the ether.
“Bill.” I spoke into the warm night.
Nothing.
Damn it.
Startled, I entered the house, surprised to find the front door unlocked, and ambled down to my room, feeling like I was going crazy. And maybe I was going insane and this was how it felt—like I walked the hedge between the real and imagined. When I unlocked the room and dropped onto the bed, I spotted the window open again and this time, my suitcase looked like it’d been searched through.
“Seriously? Like my undies and shorts, do you, Syndia?”
All the important items were still in my bag—my nana’s photos, the key… I thanked myself for thinking to bring it all with me then tucked the stuff under my pillow before falling totally dead asleep. From now on, I’d hang the Do Not Disturb sign, so no one would come in to clean. I hoped the ghosts would read it, too.
The native man was in my room again.
He stood in the corner, gesturing toward the door.
Outside, a storm was brewing. I didn’t want to face it, but he insisted, coming to my bed and pulling me to my feet. In my dream, I was naked. Not boudoir naked like my grandmother in her lingerie but completely naked. Vulnerable and exposed. The native man didn’t care. He was used to bare skin and I was the fool to think there was anything wrong with it. The wind blew open the shutters again but this time, I didn’t bother to fix them.
Come, he said.
What did he want to show me?
His hand was outstretched. I slid my palm into his and felt the dryness of his overworked skin. From his waist, the fishing net hung, no spear. He tapped the mosaic table, as if to tell me there was something meaningful about it.
Then, he led me outside.
Dark storm clouds rolled over the island, and the smell of fish permeated the air. The ground I walked on wasn’t soil or even sand. It was crushed shells. Layers and layers of rough crushed shells, much like the kind in the moon sculpture from the garden. There were no quaint Victorian Key West homes, no cars, no tropical charm.
Simply a quiet island covered in crushed shell. We stood on a beach facing the ocean. Down the beach were piles of white sticks growing in size from smallest to largest. Were those bones? Skulls, femurs, tibias, bones and more bones. The man told me what they were in his language, and somehow, I understood him.
They couldn’t bury the bones of their fallen victims on t
his island made of broken shell, so they piled them. They’d died battling other native tribes. I wasn’t sure how I knew this, but I bowed my head in respect. Standing still with southern winds grazing over me, I felt at one with the earth. I felt her pain. I felt the plight of these people.
And I felt my own plight as well.
Mayai.
His name was Mayai, and he’d been my grandmother’s spirit guide. He’d been my great-great-grandmother’s spirit guide before her, and now he was mine. I only needed to listen, though listening was difficult for me. He understood that—I’d been born in a time of tuning out, he said.
But now it was time to let go of barriers.
Mayai used his hands to motion letting go. And I did. With a handful of ashes and bone fragments, I tossed them into the water, into the salty sea, scattering my worries, giving what was once from the earth and ocean back to its origins. With circular, almost spiritual motions, I returned my grandmother to the island she’d loved, the same one that had forsaken her. Now she could rest in peace.
Mayai told me other things without moving his lips. The Spanish ships would not arrive for another several hundred years. Men would obsess over gold though gold belonged to the earth. In the end, nothing belonged to us, except our energy. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I would understand it all soon, Mayai told me.
I came from a long line of light workers, women who connected with the universe. Women were better at connecting than men, he told me. I was ready to learn my grandmother’s ways, had been since I was a child. But I’d been suppressed, he said. Barriers…time to let go.
In the distance came shouts, words that didn’t fit the new language.
I felt myself being pulled away.
“Ellie!”
Mayai nodded with a smile. It was all right. I could go back. I was ready.
“Ellie!”
The sun and ocean quickly darkened into stormy night skies, and I stood on the edge of a dock looking out. No longer naked, I wore shorts and a T-shirt, clothing that brought me back to the present. Was I scattering Nana’s ashes again? I looked down at my hands and found my fingers clutching an empty pill bottle. The new Zoloft I’d just bought this morning.