by Angie Fox
Ellis’s neck reddened, but he clenched his fists and remained rooted to the spot.
“I don’t want to deal with this right now,” I told him, fighting off the anger of this situation…this place.
“Figures,” Ellis said under his breath, which I should have let pass. I would have. I never liked to fight, especially when I had an audience, but I couldn’t resist pointing one thing out.
“It’s not like you wanted to talk about this before. You were the one who told Frankie and not me.”
Ellis appeared as shocked as if I’d slapped him. “You knew about that?”
“Yes.” I notched my chin up. He should feel terrible for keeping it from me.
“What?” He tossed his hands up. “Did Frankie rat me out?”
“I overheard,” I said primly.
“So you knew, and you didn’t say anything,” he concluded, like this was somehow on me.
“You didn’t either,” I reminded him.
As much as it angered me that he’d kept his feelings hidden, I was done talking on the driveway of the Three Angels of the Tabernacle Blessed Reform Church with his mother and half the Sugarland Heritage Society watching.
I turned and walked back toward the church and my car.
“You want to hear me say it?” Ellis prodded. “I’ll say it. I don’t want you talking to ghosts anymore,” he announced. Loudly.
Yes, well, not only did I have one living with me, but he had friends. Sometimes I didn’t have a choice whether or not I had Frankie’s power.
Like now.
I turned to face him. “I have solved murders,” I said, closing the distance between us, punctuating every word. I said it sweetly, calmly, keeping a lid on my temper, even though he absolutely, positively did not need to bring this up at this very moment. “I have helped people—alive and dead. I have set history straight and energized the town. I’m good at this. And I haven’t died yet.”
His expression cooled. “Yet.”
He would have to get picky with that last word.
“You ran headlong out of the church just now,” he informed me, like I hadn’t been there, frightened half out of my mind.
“Ellis, there’s something really wrong here,” I said. “Slow down for a second and let yourself feel it.”
“If there’s something bad around here, you need to leave,” he insisted, missing the point completely.
He didn’t even want to understand.
“If I did that every time things got weird on the other side, then how can I live my life?” I asked him, daring him to answer.
“By tuning out,” he insisted. Ellis’s expression went hard. “I’m getting notes on my phone that say stab and knife. I hate to break it to you, but this isn’t teatime with grandma.”
It never was. But that didn’t mean I could ignore it, either. “If you’re going to trivialize what I do, I’m not having this conversation.”
If he had any sort of sense, he’d have stopped right there. But of course, he didn’t.
“Listen to me and listen good,” he said, pulling out his holier-than-thou police officer tone. “I’m trained to go into dicey situations, and I’m well aware of what’s out there. You are a graphic designer who one day decided to be the savior of Sugarland.”
“You’ve seen me in action. You know how careful I am,” I reminded him.
His jaw clenched so hard I thought he’d spit teeth. “Yet you walked straight into trouble today when you didn’t need to, and I see you hightailing it out of the fundraiser, scared out of your mind.”
“What? Did I embarrass you?” I bit out.
“Yes,” he shot back. “No!” He threw up his hands. “You need to realize the world is not going to be sunshine and roses just because that’s how you think. A ghost pulled a knife on you back there. A knife that could kill you, and I can’t do anything about it. I can’t help you. I can’t save you. Nobody can do a thing about it but you, and you think it’s all fine!” He was shouting by the end. I’d never seen him so angry, and it made me want to yell back because he was wrong to tell me what to do, even though he was sort of right about the danger.
Worse, he should be able to see it scared me too.
But he was beyond reason at the moment, so I threw my shoulders back, jutted out my chin, and told it to him plain. “I am not taking orders from you, and we are not having this discussion.” When he started to speak, I raised a finger. “That’s it,” I gritted out, watching Virginia cross her arms over her chest and grin from her tower. Ellis stood resolute, glaring at me, and I wished I’d never gotten out of bed that morning.
“Ah, so you’d rather bury the issue,” Ellis said, in a move he must have known would get my goat.
It worked.
Too bad for him, I was a lady. “There is an appropriate time and place for everything, and this isn’t it,” I informed him before breezing straight for my car.
He didn’t stop me.
I had my keys out and was about to slip into my avocado green Cadillac when I spotted my grandmother’s friend Jorie fifty feet ahead, past the parking lot, alone in the churchyard.
I glanced back to Ellis, who looked ready to spit nails. Still, he hadn’t followed.
Wise man.
I treated him to an icy glare before stuffing my keys back into my bag. He and his preachy attitude and his little scene back there wouldn’t keep me from seeing Jorie today. Nor would the stares of the ladies of the Sugarland Heritage Society.
Let them look, I decided as I walked past my car, out onto the uneven ground of the old graveyard. I had more important things to do.
Jorie stood a fair ways out. She hadn’t spotted me yet.
She was the only one.
My grandmother’s treasured friend seemed oblivious to anyone and everyone as she stood talking to a moss-dotted tombstone in the shape of an Irish cross.
Oh, to be able to ignore the gathering of gawkers behind me.
This must be her husband’s grave. I’d attended the funeral a few years ago.
She’d planted dwarf rosebushes on either side, and a brass vase on the ground in front of the stone held gorgeous dried chrysanthemums in white and yellow.
I drew nearer but stopped a few feet away. I took a deep breath and collected my thoughts.
“Hi,” I said, hoping I wasn’t interrupting anything.
“Oh,” she said, turning. “Verity, sweetheart, I didn’t see you there.”
She was the same age my grandmother would have been, still spry and pleasantly plump, with short curly gray hair set off by a chunky beaded glass necklace in bright yellow and cerulean blue.
“I’m sorry,” I said, closing the distance between us and folding her into a hug. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“I’m always glad to see you, sweetheart. Anywhere, anytime,” she said, turning back to her husband’s grave. The stone read:
Raymond Earl Davis
1932 – 2018
The shell is here, but the nut is gone.
“Of course that’s what Ray’s tombstone would say,” I said, feeling my humor return. The man had walked around with a grape taped to his navel at the town picnic one year.
“His request, even before he’d been admitted to hospice. I tried to talk him out of it. Fat lot of good that did. He ordered the stone before he died.” Her smile melted into a sigh. “We had so much fun together.” She brushed a bit of imaginary dust off the top of the stone. “I stop out here every Saturday, just to talk and let him know how I’m doing. It’s like I can feel him listening. I know it sounds silly.”
“It doesn’t.” It sounded beautiful to me.
I didn’t see Ray, but that didn’t mean he didn’t drop by from time to time, even if he spent most of his time in the light.
She patted my arm. “Ray grew up out here going to this church. He bought this plot along with a diamond pendant for our first wedding anniversary.” She gave me a sidelong look. “He joked I had to stay with him until one of us died
or we paid off the necklace, whichever came last.”
They didn’t make them like that anymore. “I remember the time he dressed up as Ursula from The Little Mermaid for Halloween,” I said. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a three-hundred-pound man with a beard wearing purple face paint and a ball gown.
She lit up. “Remember that autumn picnic by the river when he snuck a turtle into the hood of your jacket?”
“Yes. I loved that turtle.” I’d played with it all day and fed it half the lettuce my mom had cut for the burgers.
She touched my arm. “When I left town with your grandma for that church trip in ’86, Ray ordered so much pizza from Joe’s To Go that Joe sent him a Christmas card that year.”
“I’ve missed you,” I told her. I should have checked on her before now.
“That is so sweet of you to say,” she said, giving me a pat on the arm. “Now before I forget, I have to give you something. Your grandma Delia would want you to have it,” she added. Jorie dug into the large needlepoint purse slung over her shoulder. “I was sorting pictures to give to the kids when I found this.” She pulled out a large manila envelope and handed it to me.
I drew out a photograph in black and white.
Jorie, a fresh-faced young bride, stood next to my grandmother, who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. Grandma wore a poufy 1950s-style pleated-skirt dress and carried her bridesmaid flowers, a rose bouquet. Framed by the embellished V-neck of her gown, she wore the delicate filigree cross I so cherished, the one she’d passed on to me.
My fingers touched the pendant at my neck as I took in every detail of the photograph, of my grandmother and her dear friend smiling in the churchyard on such a happy day.
“We posed right over there,” Jorie said, pointing to a gorgeous sprawling oak tree on the other side of the road. I recognized the same thick trunk, the aged branches spread wide like fingers.
“What a treasure.” Truly, I was grateful to have another link to my grandma.
“There’s more,” Jorie said, taking the envelope from my distracted grasp and drawing out a flat wax-paper packet with a pressed red rose inside.
“Delia made my bouquet using roses from her cutting garden. I pressed this one in my Bible, and I want you to have it.”
“Thank you,” I said, touched. “I still tend to Grandma’s roses.” Even the bush I’d accidentally fertilized with Frankie’s ashes, currently housed in a trash can in my parlor.
Jorie pressed the envelope back into my hands. “There’s also a letter in here that Delia sent me when Ray and I were living in San Diego, helping our daughter with our very first grandbaby. Her husband was on a ship with the navy then. Anyhow,” Jorie said, waving away her story, “the letter talks about you being born and how excited Delia was. She knew you’d be special from the start.”
“I don’t know what to say.” It was really too much.
“There’s also some town gossip in there that promises to be a fun read. Some things never change around here.”
“You know how I love a little slice of Sugarland history,” I gushed. And this slice held a bit of my own personal history as well. “Thank you so much for thinking of me.”
“I’m glad you treasure the memories as much as I do,” she told me. “But be careful with that rose. It’s so fragile.”
She was right. I’d loosened a petal already.
“Can you keep this for a minute?” I asked, handing her the envelope. “I’m going to press this rose.”
I had a library book in the back seat of my car, all ready to go for the stakeout tonight: a thick treatise on gardening with native wildflowers, perfect for killing time and preserving precious mementos.
“I didn’t mean now,” Jorie jokingly called after me as I made my way to the car.
If Ray’s wife thought I was overly enthusiastic, I probably needed to take it easy—but I didn’t think she truly understood what she’d done for me. Two years ago, when I’d called off my wedding, when I’d been under siege by Virginia Wydell and had to sell almost everything I owned in order to keep my house, I’d lost almost all my family history. The tangible parts, at least.
Jorie’s gift would help me rebuild my legacy with things that made a difference. Perhaps I’d frame the rose along with the vintage photo.
And so it was with a grateful heart I slipped into the back seat of my car and pressed the rose. I breathed a sigh of relief. Safe.
It had only taken a minute, maybe two because I did say a quick prayer of thanks. Still, it surprised me when I returned to Ray’s grave site and found myself alone.
“Jorie?” I called, searching the immediate area.
She had to know I was coming back.
“I’ll go find her, Ray,” I said, brushing a hand over his tombstone.
But I didn’t spot her in that part of the churchyard.
Strange. I returned to the parking lot, more confused than anything, to find a tense, yet sheepish Ellis.
He wound a thumb into the loop of his khakis. “I saw you in your car,” he said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”
“I’m not leaving.” Not yet, anyway. “Have you seen Jorie?”
“I think she went inside the church,” he said, “but I’m sure she’ll be out soon,” he added hastily when I started heading that way.
“Believe me, I’ll avoid the ghost at the organ,” I told him.
“And you think the ghost will avoid you?” he challenged as if that was what we’d been talking about all along.
I really didn’t want to fight again. “Chances are she haunts the organ,” I said, hoping I was right. “She seemed very protective of that spot.”
If I let it destroy me every time a ghost threatened me, I’d never get out of bed in the morning.
“I don’t know what came over me a few minutes ago. You’re right. I’m not one to argue in front of a crowd.”
Yet he had.
“I’m worried about you,” he added helplessly.
I understood, but… “I don’t know how to fix that,” I told him as the old bell rang.
Bong.
Bong.
A woman screamed.
Another shouted.
And Ellis ran for the church as Jorie Davis plunged from the upper window of the bell tower.
Chapter Four
Jorie lay on the grass to the right of the stairs, her needlepoint bag flung open and its contents scattered, her open eyes trained on the blue sky above.
Nothing could have prepared me for the shock of seeing such a vibrant woman so suddenly lifeless.
A stunned crowd began to gather, gasping and staring, before Ellis deftly inserted himself between them and the body.
Not the body. Jorie.
“Stay back,” he ordered, holding up a firm hand while dialing his cell phone with the other. “In fact, I want everyone inside the church. Now,” he announced. “Nobody leaves,” he called to the few who’d begun retreating toward their cars.
The ladies dutifully began filing up the stairs to the church.
“Are you coming?” Fiera paused next to me, touching a hand to her braided bun.
“In a minute,” I promised. My eye caught something she couldn’t see in the space directly above poor Jorie. Flickering streaks of white and yellow energy rose from where she lay.
They were soul traces.
And they were beautiful.
I’d encountered them before when I’d been tuned in to the other side, in places where there had been a recent death, but I’d never experienced them as they appeared.
Jorie’s soul had risen up, free. Good for her. I hoped she would stay in the light and be happy. Maybe even now she was reuniting with Ray.
I had to look at the positive, because the reality—that Jorie had left us—was too tragic.
According to Frankie, souls underwent a period of processing after death, and it could be months, more likely years, before they could attempt to r
eturn. Still, you could tell a lot from the traces a soul left behind. For instance, pops of red piercing the white and yellow light meant the person had experienced violence or struggle in their final moments. Red and sometimes orange streaks were often found in crimes of passion. I’d seen shadows of anger swirl like smoke.
But Jorie’s soul traces only showed love and light.
It made me glad for her, but at the same time, I didn’t understand. Falling from a tower wasn’t what I’d consider a peaceful, natural death.
Frankie shimmered into view next to me. “Can we leave now?”
“What? No.” A woman had been killed. “I don’t understand what I’m seeing in the soul traces.”
“They could still be forming,” he said grimly. “It can take a minute. But that’s not an excuse to stay here all day. I’ve got a stakeout.”
“We have plenty of time. I want to stay a bit longer. Keep my power on,” I urged him.
“What do I do in the meantime?” Frankie asked, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck. “I’m feeling the energy drain.”
“Go make another friend,” I suggested.
He groaned and disappeared, hopefully to take my advice.
Ellis, who had been hunkered over the scene, stood and walked over to me. “Can you tell me more about what happened?”
“It was a terrible fall. Still, her soul traces don’t show violence or suffering.” Maybe he could make sense of it.
“What does Frankie have to say?” he asked as if he didn’t quite believe me.
“He said it may take a minute or two for her soul traces to completely appear. I’ve never seen soul traces this fresh before,” I admitted.
Ellis grunted in frustration. Well, we could agree on that.
“Let’s give it some time,” I said.
Ellis nodded. “I’ll bring you back out. In the meantime, it won’t do to have you outside at the crime scene when everyone else is in the church.”
“Right.” I nodded. He had to secure the area, and for the moment, I had nothing to offer. I won’t lie. It wasn’t the best feeling.
Good thing I didn’t have time to think on it much. I entered the vestibule and ran smack into a crowd of ladies gawking out the church door windows.