Forever Road

by Catie Rhodes

  “I was wrong. Rae came back to ask me about these items she’s got marked.” Hannah tapped the folded pages with the back of her hand. “She had your family Bible with her and showed me a drawing inside it. Do you know the drawing I’m talking about?”

  “Yes. The one of the little drawers.” My heart thudded, each beat of my pulse constricting my throat. Little pinpricks of light studded my vision. I wanted answers. Getting them scared me to death.

  “That’s the one. Rae asked me which of these items I thought might have a secret compartment like the one in the drawing. I showed her this.” Hannah’s perfectly manicured fingernail tapped the paper. I learned forward and saw she pointed at the line where the writing slope was listed.

  “Why the writing slope? Why not the cedar chest or the roll top desk?”

  “Well, the roll top desk could have had it, too. Those were known to have secret compartments. But we’ve got the roll top desk here. I can tell you for a fact it doesn’t have that little line of drawers in it. The cedar chest doesn’t have it. Rae didn’t realize it at first, but that’s sitting in y’all’s barn.”

  So that’s how she started poking around out there. Somehow, that chest had found its way back to us. Creepy. I said, “So that left the writing slope, and Mrs. Rudie had possession of it.”

  “Right. And this is the part I’ve been trying to talk to you about, so pay attention.”

  What did she think I was doing? I nodded and waved my hand, urging her to keep talking.

  “Rae apparently tried to talk Mrs. Rudie out of the writing slope, and she wouldn’t have it. So she came back to me and asked me to appeal to Mrs. Rudie to donate it to the museum.” Hannah watched my face. “At first I refused, of course. But she convinced me to go talk to Mrs. Rudie about donating it. Mrs. Rudie told me to go to hell, by the way.”

  Knowing Mrs. Rudie like I had, this didn’t surprise me at all. This explained Rae’s anger at Mrs. Rudie. The morning Rae died I thought her annoyance stemmed from Mrs. Rudie’s disapproval of her relationship with Chase. Showed what little I knew.

  “Now,” Hannah said, “you’re probably asking yourself how Rae convinced me to go beg that old biddy for the Mace writing slope.”

  I shrugged, unable to predict where Hannah was going with all this.

  “She told me you were in trouble and finding the treasure was the only way to help you.” Hannah’s eyes searched my face. “Tell me what is going on. Please. We haven’t been friends for years, and I understand why. But please let me help you.”

  She kept talking, but I didn’t hear it. The blood rushing in my ears drowned out what Hannah said. I had to ask her to repeat herself.

  “I said, ‘There’s no need to be embarrassed. I’ve been in some hairy messes myself.’” Hannah put her hand on my arm. The petty part of my brain that had convinced me to ignore her in the first place suggested I brush it off. I let the hand stay.

  “I doubt you’re going to believe me when I tell you that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Hannah let out a breath, and her shoulders dropped. “Really? No clue whatsoever?”

  “Rae was a con artist, Hannah. She wasn’t the same little girl we used to play with.”

  “I know, but she was so convincing.” Hannah fiddled with the plate of biscotti, her expression miserable. “She sat right where you are sitting and cried. So you’re not in any trouble…at all?”

  “Not that I know of.” Something jumped around in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t catch it. I decided to change the subject. “So…I know Jolene donated the writing slope to the museum. Does it have those drawers from the drawing in the Bible?”

  “Haven’t checked yet. I want to.” Hannah’s eyes sparkled. “But see, there’s a reason Jolene donated it to the museum.”

  I forced out a laugh even though there was nothing funny. “I know.”

  “Let’s go see. Rae died looking for whatever’s in there.” Hannah stood and took our dishes to the sink and rinsed them.

  I didn’t want to face the nasty spirit occupying the writing slope again, but the story Rae told Hannah bothered me. Had she really believed I was in trouble and the Mace Treasure was the only cure? Before Rae’s murder, I’d have said no. Emphatically. But not now. After meeting people who knew Rae and hearing how often she mentioned me—and not to call me a bitch—it dawned on me how little I had known about Rae. Was I in some sort of trouble?

  “Yeah, I want to see.”

  “Come downstairs with me. I’ve still got it in the receiving room.” She placed the dishes in a drying rack next to the stainless steel sink and wiped her hands on a dishtowel.

  I followed her from the cute little apartment with the feeling I had seen the last of anything cute for the evening.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” Hannah glanced back at me as we descended the endless stairs. “That thing’s haunted.”

  I smiled at her and didn’t bother with denials. Not for the first time, I wondered what normal people saw and felt when they encountered a haunted place or thing. It had to be less intense than my experience; otherwise, nobody would consider me a kook.

  “Can you tell who haunts it?” She didn’t turn to face me this time. She focused on descending the steep stairs in her fashionable heels.

  “I’m not that talented, but I will tell you it’s like nothing I’ve ever encountered.” Admitting this much made warning bells clang in my head as the old mistrust of Hannah clambered to the surface of my thoughts. But she was either sincere or a better actress than her appearances on TV hinted. Besides, a lifetime of pretending not to see the spirit world had tuckered me out.

  “So what happens when we get in there and start messing with it?”

  “Your guess is about as good as mine,” I said.

  Hannah led me through a maze of hallways in an unused part of the museum. She opened a door marked “Receiving Room” and motioned me inside.

  The room’s atmosphere held anticipation, but not the good kind. This anticipation marked the split second before blood splattered on the wall, that moment when you know everything has gone wrong, but it’s too late to fix it. Every instinct I had screamed for me to run, and run fast. Once inside the room, the creepy sensation of someone watching had me looking over my shoulder.

  Reginald Mace’s writing slope sat on a long table. The hostile thing emanated waves of icy air no less subtle than a dog’s growl. My body tightened, and I wondered if we shouldn’t just leave the thing alone. Sell it online or something. Rae’s claim I was in trouble stopped me from calling the whole thing off. What if she was telling the truth? I followed Hannah to stand in front of the writing slope.

  The air grew so heavy and thick that each inhalation was an effort. I glanced at Hannah to see if whatever inhabited the writing slope affected her. Chill bumps had risen on her arms, and her hand trembled as she used the key to unlock the box.

  “One thing I figured out real quick after I got you into trouble is that you weren’t lying about the ghost stuff.” Hannah lifted the writing surface from the box and moved pieces of the writing slope around. The feeling of another presence in the room grew so strong, I expected something to appear any second. The message was clear: leave now or face the consequences. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to learn what Rae died trying to find out.

  “You thought I lied about seeing your father’s ghost?” I struggled to keep my voice calm. If Hannah saw nothing out of the ordinary, this thing might be bluffing.

  “That’s what Mom, Uncle Joey, and Aunt Carly said.” Hannah shrugged. “Who do you believe when you’re eight?”

  She had a point. The intensity of the anger I spent the last twenty years directing at her lessened. I crept closer as Hannah straightened out a paper clip and took an inkwell out of its resting place. Her hands left condensation marks on the old wood and brass. That worried me.

  “Hannah, I don’t know if I’d—”

  Hannah jammed the paperclip into a
corner of the box. From inside the box came a click as a catch released. A million voices whispered inside my head. Though I couldn’t understand the words, they broadcast anger at our intrusion. Oblivious, Hannah lifted away a panel hiding four flat drawers with tiny, black pulls. The same drawers drawn on the family Bible’s inner cover appeared. A low hum resonated from the box. It sounded like something powering up. Oh, no. Everything leading up to this had been nothing more than a preview. I had to stop her.

  “Don’t touch the box anymore.” I grabbed her upper arm and tried to pull her away.

  “Why not? I mean it’s creepy, but I think it’s okay.” Hannah opened the first drawer. A furious screech from inside my head knocked me off balance. I put a hand out to steady myself and tried to shake off the pain. Unaware of my agony, her face lit up with the same curiosity I remembered from childhood, and Hannah pulled the pouch from the drawer.

  That’s when the shit splattered. Figuratively, of course. Anger rolled through the room in waves. It drew strength from my fear, growing in intensity. A thin wisp of black swirled around, moving tentatively, seeking a home. It flowed into the pouch. Before I had time to formulate a warning to Hannah, she screamed and tossed the pouch on the floor. It landed with a heavy thud. I had just a breath of a second to wonder what could be in there. The black shadow slithered back out of it and came straight at me.

  The negative energy probed me, its touch like electric shocks. I cried out and slapped at it, which did nothing. Gathering my will, I pushed against the energy so hard it seemed my head would explode. I didn’t know what would happen if this dark thing got inside me, and I didn’t want to know. I shook with the effort of trying to repel it, and a headache took root in my temples. The darkness retreated to the writing slope, cycloning around it.

  “What are you doing?” Hannah came toward me, reaching for me. I could tell she knew something was wrong but not what.

  “Didn’t you see that?” I didn’t understand how she didn’t see. My second sight made it all so vivid.

  She shook her head. “That pouch burned my hand. Then you seemed to be trying to fight something off.”

  The hum, which sounded like electricity, came back. The items on the table clattered. At the last second, I understood what was going to happen.

  “Get back!” I yelled. Someone’s heirloom crystal hit the concrete floor and shattered, shards rising up like a mushroom cloud. Hannah put her arms up to shield her face.

  The hum increased in intensity. My ears popped the way they had the one time I flew on an airplane. We couldn’t just stand here and let it decimate the entire museum. I had to get it out of here. I grabbed the writing slope, and its energy crashed into me, the force knocking me backward. My heart ached as though it might explode in my chest. I staggered toward the exit, intending to carry the horrible thing outside, dump it on the ground, and burn it. Jolts of energy traveled up my arms, shocking me, causing me to whimper. My vision went wobbly and all the color drained out of it. Each step sent a thunderbolt of pain into my back, but I forced myself to keep going.

  “The safe in my office.” Hannah’s voice was almost lost in the gale of whispering and pain. She grabbed my arm and towed me along. It was like pushing through hurricane force winds. We moved through the museum in slow motion, holding one another upright. When we got to the office, Hannah raced inside and opened a huge safe. I dumped the writing slope inside, and Hannah slammed the door shut.

  The painfully angry force left me, leaving a confused void. I slumped to the floor in relief and sat there panting. Hannah sat down behind her desk. Her white, shocked face echoed my feelings.

  “What the hell just happened?” She didn’t really seem to expect an answer, so I just shook my head.

  “I don’t know how that made it go away, but I think it did.”

  “Well, of course it did,” Hannah said. “The safe’s iron. If an iron horseshoe’ll stop a ghost, so will anything else made of iron.”

  “Really?” I remembered the homely iron horseshoe Jolene had me remove from Mrs. Rudie’s dining room. The piece of half-remembered folklore clicked into place for me. Maybe Mrs. Rudie had known more about the writing slope, ghosts, and the Mace Treasure than anybody thought.

  “Sure. Iron can sometimes keep ghosts out. So can the bottle tree I saw at your Memaw’s house. They don’t always work, but it’s worth a try.”

  “How do you know this stuff?” My head gave a particularly sharp throb, and I cradled it, hoping the conversation would make me forget how much I hurt.

  “Like I told you, I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened between us all those years ago. I did a lot of research, went to a lot of places people thought were haunted, read a lot of books…” The color dropped out of Hannah’s face and faded to a ghastly gray. “Oh fuck,” she breathed.

  “What’s wrong?” Fear gripped me. “What?”

  A drop of blood hit the carpet at my feet, and Hannah rushed toward me. She pressed a clean towel to my face. I grabbed the towel and waved away her attempts to help.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I had this happen the first night Rae came to me.”

  “I don’t know if it’s okay. What if that thing did something to you?”

  “We need to clean up the blood.” I ignored the other comment. Whatever damage dealing with the spirit caused was done. Worrying would only make me crazy. Cleaning would make me feel better. It always did.

  Hannah searched my face for a long moment and then nodded and got out a spray bottle of some sort of industrial cleaning product. Together we dabbed at the blood, applied cleaner, and scrubbed. The stain appeared to have permanently tattooed the light colored carpet. We finally put an ice cube on the stain, hoping that would dull it. Hannah took a bottle of Kentucky bourbon out of her desk and poured herself a healthy slug of it.

  “Things really went south after I poked that paper clip in the writing box,” Hannah said. “It didn’t do that when I was alone. I just got this horrible feeling of dread. The room was so cold I could see my breath.”

  “It’s because of me.” I hesitated before I continued but decided to go for broke. “My ex-husband and I lived in a former funeral home. My presence stirred up the spirits. It became unbearable.”

  “What happened?” Hannah leaned forward, elbows on her desk.

  “He left one day and never came back.” I sort of enjoyed the open-mouthed shock on Hannah’s face. Her marriage must have ended on a nicer note than mine. I stood. Visit was over.

  “Don’t you want to see what was in the leather pouch?” Hannah set the little bag on the desk between us.

  “You picked that thing back up after it burned you?” My old friend had brass balls. I’d have swept that thing into a dustpan and thrown it out with the garbage.

  “Of course.” She shrugged as if to ask what else I expected.

  I didn’t want to know what was inside it. The spirit had enough power to cause poltergeist-like activity. No telling what else it could do. But Rae had died while trying to find it. I couldn’t refuse to look.

  “Open it,” I said.

  Hannah grabbed the leather pouch and untied the strip of rawhide holding it together. As the rawhide fell to the desk, the dark shadow materialized. So much for iron stopping it. Or was it a different spirit connected with only the rawhide bag, like a booby trap? Did each piece of Reginald Mace’s crazy treasure host one of these horrid guardians? Maybe that’s why nobody ever found the treasure. And maybe that’s what his deal with the witch Eddie told me about entailed.

  Hannah let out a howl and dropped the pouch on the desk. “It burned me.”

  “Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me.”

  She made a face and held out her hand for me to see. It was as red as if she’d slopped hot coffee on it.

  I motioned her to follow me into the museum. She did so without argument, though she looked puzzled. I stopped in front of a blacksmith display. “Do you mind if we use those
pincers?”

  Hannah grinned.

  Back in the office, I picked up one corner of the pouch with the pincers, and Hannah used an iron spike to pull open its flap. A wooden object hit the desk and bounced to the floor.

  Hannah dropped to her knees. Using the iron spike, she rolled the piece of wood around, trying to get a good look at it.

  “It’s an angel.” I squatted on the floor next to her. The angel had been carved out of wood. Its wings were spread, and it held a trumpet to its mouth. Nice figurine, but what did it have to do with treasure?

  “Hand me those pincers,” Hannah said. I did as she asked, and she picked up the angel and set it on her desk.

  “What are you going to do with it?” I asked.

  “Figure out what’s important about it. What else?”

  “Have fun getting burned.” To show her how little I cared, I stood and looked out the window of her office. Dean Turgeau stood over my car scribbling in a ticket book.

  “That asshole!” I charged toward the museum’s exit, Hannah close at my heels.

  “What’re you doing?” I stopped a few feet from Dean. His skin, tan from running outdoors, glowed in the late afternoon sun. The hair on his arms was bleached blonde from the sun. My body heated as I imagined what his skin would feel like against mine. Focus, I reminded myself.

  “Writing you a ticket.” Dean glanced behind me at Hannah who clattered up to us, already limping in her high-heeled boots. The chemistry I expected to feel between them wasn’t there. Odd.

  “I don’t understand why,” Hannah said. “She’s not parked illegally.”

  “Her inspection’s out.” Dean closed his ticket book without tearing out the ticket. Rather than his eyes flittering over Hannah—who I had every reason to believe was his girlfriend—they rested on me. My body tightened in response. My desire for this obstinate man irritated me. I wanted to pick a fight with him to relieve some tension.

  “Oh, he’s right. It’s an honest error, and he could cut me some slack, but he won’t. He likes lording his crappy position over other people. He’s a cocksmoker.”