River of Ghosts (Haunted Florida Book 2)

by Gaby Triana

  The woman with the fair skin and red hair.

  A long green dress curled through the walls before I could even decipher where she was coming from. Her hands were tied behind her back and she sang a Spanish lullaby as though nothing were wrong, as though she weren’t walking to her death. Because she was. To the edge of the ship, ablaze with fire and heat. A crimson tangle of smoky tendrils she was, with her orange hair kicking dust into the air like a fiery Medusa.

  She looked at the wall, or at Eve, a sad, resigned smile, like we would soon understand her fate. The angry man bellowed through the house. I knew we all heard him, because everyone, even Kane and Sharon, especially Eve, cowered upon hearing his booming voice. He shouted, And ye be the last to die, wench!

  No, she laughed under her breath. For all you’ve done, for your sins, you will roam the glades forever, trapped in a sea of grass. I’ll have the last laugh, captain. Aye-aye.

  And she floated through the room.

  We watched her in awe.

  Each of us, all of us, witnessing the specter’s full glory, full-body apparition, the holy grail of ghost hunters right here in wicked glowing splendor without a camera to capture it. She was beautiful to watch, horrific because this would only end one way, and because I knew her pain. He’d killed my husband, my one and only love. And for that, he would pay. An eternity would not be enough for his sins.

  I felt her pain.

  I knew her pain.

  I was her pain, because I’d known her long ago.

  She danced to her own rhythm in this room frozen in time. Where we each were, I couldn’t say, since I floated and swerved in a darkened room tinged with sunrise in time to the woman’s singing. Transfixed we were on the ball of orange light moving through the room, singing a Spanish lullaby.

  Duermete mi niño, duermete mi amor…

  We were satellites orbiting around her. The wife of the Spanish captain, the witch who’d cursed Bellamy forever. Her soul had moved on, but now she was back for one last appearance on her way to walk the plank, or perhaps she did this every morning, replaying out her fate for the empty glades to see. What a lonely existence.

  Transfixed in her presence, we froze while she made her way to the window.

  Duermete pedazo de mi corazón…

  Dream sweet piece of my heart.

  I had brought the woman home.

  Through centuries of rebirth, the Red Witch was me.

  The gunmetal aura of the house deepened, so much that it was hard to see anything else except the scene playing in front of us. Taking invisible steps to the window, the angel of death turned and pointed her gaze right at me, silky, torn, green threads billowing behind her as though moving underwater. I saw the space where her ear should have been, where it had been cut off and fed to the reptiles. Her dress was soaked with blood dripping from the side of her head.

  I felt the pain on my own skin, the searing burn of cut flesh.

  This ship is diseased with wrath and greed.

  But you will break the curse, Avila.

  How?

  How can I break the curse?

  Of course, she wouldn’t tell me—she wanted Bellamy to rot in hell forever. But I felt it now. Yes. I had come to Villegas House to undo the curse and release the souls within it. It had taken death, it had taken fear and my grandfather’s tragedy to finally bring me out here. The necklace around my neck had been made from the animal that had refused to extinguish the Red Witch’s life—a crocodile, not a gator. The crocs too frightened to come near her. Imbued with her energy from the waters of her drowning, it had allowed the continuation of her soul into everyone who had ever found it on these sacred lands.

  On the shores of Florida Bay, someone had found it and relocated it to the Everglades. My grandfather had worn it before me and several others before him, including an unwilling soldier on the battlefield of the Second Seminole War near this spot. They were all inside me. I was the ongoing result of many lives.

  I was Miccosukee, I was American, I was Spanish.

  We were all connected.

  Calmly resigned to her fate, the Red Witch walked through Eve, seemed to bring her along. Her naked feet stepped over the edge of the precipice, and then she was gone.

  In my suspension, I floated to the window to look out and see where the captain’s wife had disappeared to and found her falling slowly, timelessly down toward the alligators waiting below. The stench of death mixed with salty seas and the ferrous scent of spilled blood filled my nostrils, as the house ebbed and flowed back and forth, rocking over invisible waters.

  Bellamy shouted, his voice shaking through the ship.

  He’d lost his fortune, lost his chance at appeasing the king, lost half his crew in the fruitless chase. And now, because of this damned woman (everyone knew that women were bad luck aboard a ship), he was forced to leave this house. Screams filled the home, of anger and rage that seemed to last forever, ancient fury that would never see completion. This ship—this house—was an endless trap of grief and would always be unless we burned it to the ground.

  Burned it to the ground.

  That was what I needed to do—burn the infernal thing down.

  The Red Witch knew but hadn’t told me.

  But I knew anyway.

  Because the Red Witch had been me—long ago.

  The entity moved through the room, charged out through the ceiling, blasting a corner of the roof open, and the darkness lifted slowly. We found ourselves back in the present, wondering what the hell had happened. Sharon’s back was pressed against the wall out of utter fear, Kane’s mouth hung open wide, soundlessly, his breath lost on the last of Bellamy’s curling, pervasive shouts.

  I’d traveled through a dream back in time.

  Eve, though—was gone.

  “Babe!” Kane’s shouts echoed through the empty house. Had she slipped out while the ghost woman in red had captivated us? “Babe! Where are you?” Kane ducked into the hallway to search for his wife, but my gaze remained transfixed on the window.

  This house made of pirate ship wood made you feel its pain, forced you to walk its footsteps, feel the throbbing agony of all its fallen, slain, and cursed.

  I knew where Eve was.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  My hope was to confirm what I already knew and to get to Eve before her husband saw her. I ran to the window and there she was twelve feet below, broken body on the ground below, torn by alligators. They wrestled over the meatiest pieces at the meal that had dropped from the sky. As we’d watched the woman in red, transfixed, it’d been Eve who’d stepped to the window, Eve who’d cast her last words, Eve who hadn’t been able to handle the stress.

  “Fuck.” I closed my eyes.

  “Babe!” Kane continued to call for her.

  “Kane…”

  I didn’t know how to tell him. This moment, caught between normality, if we could call this moment normal, and the instant where your life changed forever, this moment charged with electricity.

  “What? What is it?” His eyes filled with understanding and he flew to the window, pushing me aside by taking up space. His gaze fell on what I’d seen, and the wave of terror and unspeakable dread I felt emanating off his soul crushed me.

  “Kane…”

  “Oh, no. God, no. No, no, babe……no.” Kane sank to his knees, the gun slipping to the ground and resting beside him.

  I tried, like any fellow human, to console him, but what do you tell someone who’s literally watched their wife get torn apart at the seams by animals of the earth doing nothing other than being animals?

  “I don’t know what happened. We saw the ghost…the ghost came in the room…” I tried putting together coherent thoughts, but there was nothing to say. No explanation that would bring her back. Words mattered as much as running down to save Eve.

  “She wanted to die,” he cried into my shoulder. “I felt it.”

  “I did too.”

  She did. She’d been losing her ability to cope
faster than the rest of us. I had seen it in everything she said and did. What little emotional strength she had, she had because of Kane keeping her together, but Eve, from the beginning, had not been fit for this excursion.

  “What happened?” Sharon asked from her spot, back still pressed against the wall. Still in shock from the ghostly encounter, she looked at us with the energy of a dying vine.

  I shook my head at her and held Kane’s shoulders as he sobbed. The man’s energy leaked from his pores. He was dying as I held him, maybe not a physical death, but a spiritual one. There was nothing left to live for, try for. Everything he ever did, he did it for Eve. He wailed like a wounded animal, a sound I never cared to hear ever again. If I ever made it out of here alive, that was.

  As his broken spirit disintegrated in my arms, I thought about where we’d go from here, how we’d ever find the energy to finish building that raft now that he almost certainly wouldn’t want to anymore, and then something slipped from between us, creating a pocket of air alerting us to its displacement.

  The shotgun had moved, slid along the floor, and was now back in the hands of Sharon Roswell, its barrel pointed straight at us. “Sharon…” I pleaded, holding up my palms in surrender. “Haven’t we been through enough?”

  Her eyes were filled with resignation. “We have. Every moment of my life has led me here, to this house, and this is how it ends.”

  Ends?

  “No. Listen, this is the only the beginning,” I told her. Wasn’t sure what I meant for her exactly, but she needed to hear positive words, something that would inspire her, remind her that we were all connected. Surely the words should mean something to her personal story. “Sharon…”

  Slowly, she got to her feet, still aiming the shotgun at us, hands trembling. For the first time in days, she looked human. I almost agreed she should kill us out of mercy.

  Almost.

  With every step closer, she pointed it more at Kane. I wracked my brain trying to figure out a way to swipe it away, to jump at her like the panther had jumped on Quinn, to move faster than the speed of light and knock the gun from her hands, but we were at her mercy. And being at the mercy of a woman going mad was to die a painful death.

  “It’s better this way,” she said. “Right, Kane?”

  To my shock, Kane nodded, his cheek brushing against my shoulder. He’d lost his will to live. In my arms, I held a dead man.

  “No,” I told him, hoping my shake would snap him out of it. “Sharon, no. We’ll move on from this. It’s traumatic, but we’ll find a way. Life goes on, finds new meaning. Sharon, don’t…” I thought of my mother sitting at her table in the village, talking to tourists on a Sunday, not realizing I wasn’t home yet. Or realizing it and worried to death. It was Sunday, wasn’t it? Unaware that her daughter was caught in a house of hell miles away. I thought of my grandmother, my uncle, my little brother, of the life I’d led.

  It’d been a good one.

  Even with all I’d complained about and all the guilt I’d carried, it’d been a good one. My grandfather’s had been too. The American soldier. Maria Pilar Carmona’s had been too.

  But I wouldn’t die today.

  The shotgun blasted, the force sending Kane backwards in my arms. I looked at the bleeding hole in the middle of his stomach, at the life force leaking out of his gaze, and my lungs filled with fury again.

  So, we were doing this today after all. This bitch and I would be fighting to the death, because screw this woman if I was going to let her take me down in her whim of miscalculated insanity. She would not have the upper hand, not if I could help it. From the beginning, she’d thought she’d been the head of this whole expedition to hell, but I had news for her—this was my territory.

  With one last pulse of energy left in him, Kane whispered, “Get her.”

  I charged at her with full force, knocking her against the wall, pushing the length of the shotgun up under her chin, choking her with it. In my mind’s eye, Sharon’s eyes bulged and her tongue pushed out and she died right here, at my hands, but her knee jumped and caught me in the groin.

  Motherfu—

  We swapped places at the wall and then I was the one with the weapon under my chin. Our strengths felt about the same, a surprise considering she was older. But she was also more fit than I was and it showed. Her pressure on the rifle against my chest was excruciating, the tension in our tangled arms faltering. We could break at any moment, but I wouldn’t.

  I kicked her hard in the knee, and as she cried out, I stumbled out of her grasp and headed for the backpack in the corner of the room. A can of mosquito spray. If I could reach it, I could blind her. She shot at me and I ducked, bulldozing into her midsection, head down, as she shot again.

  At this point there had to be zero shells left in the damn thing.

  Taking hold of the shotgun, I wrestled it out of her hand and threw it against the wall, watching it bounce off and land near Kane’s limp hand. His body was still twitching in agonizing death. Chest heaving, gasping for breath, Sharon charged at me.

  “You could’ve shot me,” she said, slamming me, knocking me down. “Why didn’t you?” A punch slammed into my face.

  “I’m not a killer.” Running out of strength, I reached and flailed, catching my fingernails on her face and tearing off little strips of skin.

  She screamed as she hit me again, ramming her fists into my face over and over. I began blacking out and knew it would be a matter of time before I couldn’t see anymore. From somewhere behind me, or maybe above me, or within, I heard laughter—the captain’s laughter, the “angry man.” Bellamy loved this, lived for this.

  As my eyes swelled shut, I spotted my little brother in the middle of the room, disappointed that his big sister was a lame fighter who couldn’t end things in a big wicked witch way. He wanted to help any way that he could, and then—he did.

  The backpack slid across the room. Reality felt warped, time slowed down, and Sharon and I rolled on the floor, fighting for the upper hand. At one point, I was the one above Sharon, glaring down at her, focused on the bruises forming all over her face. Our shoulders had tapped Kane’s, and she had reached out and snatched his bowie knife from his belt. A second later, I felt searing pain in my shoulder, as the blade sliced through, jagged edges ripping away at muscle. It burned, and I blacked out for a moment, falling onto my side, gripping my shoulder.

  Any moment now, I’d feel the knife again, this time in my chest.

  I waited for it, expected it, even cocked my knee back, ready to kick forth if I had to fend her off. My hand rested lightly on the backpack, but I’d already forgotten what was inside. I could focus on nothing. All that was clear to me was a violently angry woman poised to kill me, the mad laughter of a scorned pirate echoing through the house, and my little brother trying to shout through dimensions that silenced him.

  Get it, Avila.

  Billie, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you were taken.

  So sorry I couldn’t save you.

  It should’ve been me.

  It should’ve been me in the front seat.

  My grandfather stood in the room too, watching me lose this fight to the woman who’d used me to get here. Taken from me, taken from Linda, taken from everyone, and for what? Truth? Had that truth given her peace? Truth had only given her permission. Permission to act like the animal she always was, only now she had a legitimate reason.

  The only way to win this would be to kill her, and I could never do that.

  I wasn’t my grandfather, and I wouldn’t let Captain Bellamy win over me.

  That only left death—my own.

  The bowie knife whooshed down, straight for my chest, but I blocked Sharon’s hand with my arm, heard bone crack. Whether hers or mine, I wasn’t sure, though I felt blinding pain spread through me again. I was made of pain at this point. In my hand was the can of mosquito spray. I’d pressed down on the nozzle and was shooting her face with the mist.

  She stepped back, t
ripped over herself and fell to the hole-riddled floor.

  “Damn it. Why? Why would you do that?”

  “Sorry, not sorry,” I said.

  Using what little strength I had left, I dragged the backpack closer to me and fished my hand around for the barbecue lighter. The minute Sharon rushed at me again, I was on my feet, gaining my second wind. I slapped her hand hard, knocking the knife out. It slid along the floor, whirling like a fidget spinner.

  Pressing down on the trigger, I turned on the lighter.

  “Don’t come closer,” I told Sharon whose hands were pressed over her eyes. She stumbled to a stop. “Fair warning, there’s a lighter in my hand and a can of mosquito repellant in the other. If you come closer, I’m torching your ass.”

  If I did it, I’d be no better than my grandfather, the man who murdered a slew of people in this house in 1967. I’d become a victim of the curse, and I’d only prove Sharon right.

  Walking backwards, I found the bowie knife again, jammed it into the can and watched the flammable liquid spray violently into the air. I covered the walls, the doors, entered the hallway and covered the handrails of the stairs. Covering everything I could until the can ran out, I stood there with the lighter in my hand, its flame flickering and ready to set this house on fire.

  Sharon managed to open her eyes to a squint. “Go ahead, Cypress. Burn the house with me in it. You’ll end up in the news as the Indian woman gone mad, responsible for multiple deaths out in the Everglades.”

  I laughed hard. And couldn’t stop.

  I would.

  And it would be worth it.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “Nah.”

  The voice was not mine, nor Sharon’s, nor any ghost’s from what I could gather.

  Our attention was brought to the man on the ground, coughing up blood.

  “It’ll be the Black man who finally got tired of all this shit.” Kane’s fingers curled around the cold metal of the shotgun and a moment later, a shell ripped open Sharon Roswell’s forehead. She dropped to the floor into a puddle of her own life force.