by Medley, Lisa
“An artifact.”
“No. Someone just lost a class ring. Like one of the sorority girls.”
“Does that look like a woman’s ring? No. No is the answer. That is a man’s ring. An officer’s ring or something. That could be a real-life, true-blue Civil War artifact.”
“I doubt it. And if it is, we’ll return it. This is a national park. There are rules.”
“I say finders keepers. Let me see it better.”
Sarah handed the ring to Ellie, who examined it like a jeweler, squinty-eyed and mouth turned up in one corner. She held it up to the light of Sarah’s phone and dug at the dirt in the engravings with her fingernail.
“Interesting,” Ellie said.
“Enough. Let’s get home.” Sarah snatched back the ring. She had experienced all the fun she could stand for one night. The park offices were long closed and Ellie’s was the last car in the parking lot. “I’ll bring it back tomorrow and turn it in to Lost and Found.”
“You’re such a goody two-shoes.”
“No. Thanks to you, I’m a rule breaker. Or did you not notice the entire ghost-hunting debacle tonight? Oh, wait. You probably didn’t notice because you got to keep your Anomaly Detector. Your eyes were glued to it the entire night. When you weren’t kissing Allen’s ass, that is.”
“Fat lot of good it did. After you turned off your phone, neither of them went off the rest of the night. Turned out to be a cold walk through the park, not a ghost hunt. Although…Allen was kind of hot, right?”
“He was old.” Sarah gripped the ring and stared into the dark parking lot.
“He wasn’t that old. You need to broaden your horizons. There are a lot of fish out there, you know. You don’t have to keep the barracuda you currently have.”
“Jason isn’t a barracuda. He’s…complicated.”
Ellie snorted. “He’s an asshole. Nothing complicated about that. He’s a smarmy real estate agent with his face on twelve billboards in Fredericksburg. Like everyone in town doesn’t already know him. He’s in a bar every night. He’s a drunk, Sarah. A mean one and you can’t fix him. He’s unfixable. You can’t fix asshole.”
Sarah fidgeted. “He takes out clients. It’s part of his job.”
“He takes out people who are looking for homes? To bars? Is that what he tells you? You’re smarter than that.”
“Thank you for the insightful psychological analysis.”
“All right, but admit it. Allen was hot in that Captain Mal sort of way.” Ellie poked Sarah in the shoulder for emphasis and smiled.
“Captain who? Speaking of hot. How about some heat in here?”
“You had better be kidding me. Captain Malcom Reynolds? Firefly? Best show in the history of television, prematurely canceled after its first season? Mal? That’s so not shiny.” Ellie turned the key in the ignition. When the motor didn’t turn over immediately, Sarah sighed.
“Seriously? When are you going to get this thing worked on?” Sarah asked.
“When I have the money. Where’s that screwdriver?”
Sarah handed the tool to her. Ellie hopped out of the car again and said, “Give her some gas when I tell you.”
Sarah straddled the console and put her left foot on the gas pedal as Ellie popped the hood and fiddled around with the motor.
“Turn the key and give it a tap of gas.”
Sarah did as told and the car roared to life. Ellie slammed down the hood, then climbed back in as Sarah repositioned herself.
“Sometimes the carburetor gets stuck,” Ellie said, ducking her head. “My brother showed me what to do when it won’t start.”
“Can we just get home now? We both have to work tomorrow, and it’s already after midnight.”
“As you wish.”
Sarah couldn’t wait to get the ring home and cleaned up to see what it really looked like. She clutched her find, then jumped as something jolted against her skin.
Probably more electrical problems with Ellie’s car.
That girl was going to be the death of her. Sarah waited in expectant silence for the car to burst into flames on their ride home.
*
“See you at work tomorrow?” Ellie asked as Sarah stepped onto the bricked sidewalk in front of her apartment building.
“Bright and way too early,” Sarah said.
“I’m sorry about tonight. I appreciate you being such a good sport.” Ellie smiled, her eyes dropping briefly. Then that same old mischievous smile broke across her face. “At least you got a souvenir.”
Sarah rubbed the goose egg on her head and offered a scowl back. “Yeah, a concussion and a public chastisement from a Ghostbuster. Great souvenirs.”
“The ring, dork. See you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Ellie.” Sarah shut the car door, and Ellie drove away.
God only knew what she would come up with for next month’s girls’ night.
Sarah searched her pockets for the key. After finding it, she pulled out both it and the ring. She opened the shared entrance door and made her way up the narrow flight of stairs. Her apartment was a primo loft directly over Greysmith’s Book Shop & Coffee Bar. The rental was small but surprisingly affordable due to the effusion of noise from the espresso machine and constant drift of music from below. Both wafted through the floor from six a.m. to midnight daily. Sarah could sleep through anything, though, and the disclosure wasn’t a deterrent. What she wanted was a place of her own close to work.
Considering she and Ellie barely made forty thousand as web site developers, affordable was good, and she’d snatched the opportunity to rent the loft a few months ago. A little noise seemed a small price to pay for the ambiance and personal space. Jason had tried to get her to move out to the sticks in a rental he’d found, but she liked being in the midst of things, not secluded.
Most storefronts on Princess Anne Street had apartment lofts above them, thanks to the Fredericksburg Chamber of Commerce’s revitalization efforts to bring back business and life to the downtown area.
Sarah entered her apartment, shut the door and leaned back against it with a sigh. What a night. She kicked off her shoes at the doorway. Her yellow tabby weaved between her legs.
“I know. I’m late. I should have stayed home with you, Bitly.” She bent to scratch behind the cat’s ears, then started to the bathroom, shedding her clothes as she went.
Showering was foremost on her agenda, and then bed. But the muddy ring in her hand beckoned her. She started the shower, then dug around under her bathroom cabinet for an old toothbrush while the water heater worked its magic.
Surely if the ring had survived being buried, a little gentle scrubbing wouldn’t hurt. She turned on the faucet and held the ring under the water, then went to work with the toothbrush. Gentle scrubbing soon gave way to more vigorous efforts as the dark engravings along the sides of the setting were revealed. The bathroom steamed up as she worked. Flecks of mud plugged up around the sink stopper, pooling the water.
An image appeared as the mud and grit sloughed out from the ring’s indentations. A head, wings, and a tail of a dragon took form. Engraved flames licked behind the beast, circling both sides of the band and meeting in the back center. The dragon image was mirrored on the opposite side.
With the ring free of mud, Sarah retrieved a tube of toothpaste, squeezed a line along the toothbrush bristles, then applied the same vigor to her task, scrubbing and polishing the silver band until it gleamed. She rubbed the stone with a soft cloth. The onyx was now so clean she could almost see her reflection in it.
Not quite a diamond ring, but still a very pretty stone.
She slid the ring on her finger. Even on her thumb, the ring was far too big. She would lose it in ten minutes. She removed it and set it on the countertop.
Shower. Bed. Do it.
Ten minutes later, Sarah was warm, snuggly and tucked into her bed. Bitly curled by her side. After setting the alarm, Sarah placed her phone on her nightstand beside her new treasure. T
he ring turned out to be the only good thing about the night. She noticed six missed calls from Jason. She’d had the phone off after the ghost-hunting debacle, and then in the ring excitement, hadn’t noticed her missed calls. He hadn’t left a message. Typical. He had made her chase him since college.
Well, she wasn’t going to chase him tonight. It was much too late to call him back. Turning over, she tried not to replay the night’s humiliation in her head, but it was no use. She loved Ellie, but sometimes…
Bitly purred as Sarah scratched his head. One thing about living downtown was that it never grew truly dark. Between the street lights below and the floor-to-ceiling windows on the street side of her loft, nights were more like dusk than dark. She’d looked into purchasing blinds or curtains, but couldn’t afford a custom job. Instead, she grabbed the sleep mask from under her pillow, slid it over her eyes, and slipped off to sleep.
Chapter Three
Tanner woke screaming.
Anger, not fear, set him off. The question was what had awakened him in the first place? And after all this time. At least it had seemed like a long time. Being dead made it hard to keep track. He’d counted sunrises for months after he’d died, but even that became too taxing after a while. And when he’d finally been crushed into the ground and damned to the darkness, he’d lost all hope.
His life energy had begun to wane immediately upon his death and his semi-corporeal form—his ghost self—had dissipated a few days after his men removed his body from the battlefield. Not that it would have mattered anyway. No one could see him. He’d tried to make contact as the soldiers crossed by him: screaming, begging, anything to get their attention. To tell them he wasn’t dead. Not really. When he noticed the soldiers could also pass through him without so much as a shiver, he’d given up.
Despair filled him as he realized Sylvia had achieved exactly what she’d promised. He was a stupid man. Maybe he could have loved her. Maybe…
God, what a witch.
No. It would never have worked. He’d have been damned either way. At least he’d saved soldiers’ lives, his own good men, with his decision at Chatham. He’d done the right thing, even if it had cost his life.
He surveyed the room as best he could from his prison.
Clearly he’d traveled from the grounds where he’d lingered for…decades? He wished he knew. Pent-up frustration filled him. Tanner could see energy emanating from something, just out of his reach. A glow—the signature of a living soul. An entity he hadn’t seen for a very long time. The aura, bright and strong, almost reached his prison cell, but not quite.
So close.
Something had sparked him to life. But what?
He startled when a face appeared before him. A non-human face. The face of some creature filled the mirrored prism of his cell.
What fresh hell was this?
The next thing he knew he was falling, falling, falling. The clatter when he landed nearly deafened him. His stomach roiled as if he’d leaped from a great height.
“Bitly. Stop it.”
A voice? A female voice?
Sylvia? Could she still be in possession of him?
Dear God.
“Bad kitty.”
His stomach lurched again as he was returned to his previous perch; the view was exactly the same, except the face that stared into his for the briefest moment was different. A woman’s face.
A woman most assuredly not Sylvia.
Relief flooded him. Of course Sylvia was long dead.
Of course.
And she wouldn’t have followed him into the afterlife. She’d never loved him that much. Not enough to spend eternity with him. Only enough to damn his soul for it.
*
Sarah untangled herself from her bed coverings and snapped on the lamp. Bitly batted at the ring he’d managed to swat under her bed after knocking it from the nightstand in his late-night wanderings. Anything new in the house automatically piqued the cat’s interest. Clearly, the beast didn’t know the cautionary tale of curiosity and the cat.
Scrambling under the bed, she searched and finally retrieved the ring. A small shock passed through her hand as she clutched it. She couldn’t blame Ellie’s car this time. Maybe onyx was a conductor of some sort, or the silver band?
Weird.
She placed the ring back on the nightstand and crawled underneath her covers.
“Bad kitty,” she repeated. Bitly seemed less than repentant and turned his head away, having already lost interest in the potential toy. Light glinted off the newly polished stone, and Sarah was proud of the restoration job she’d done.
She’d return it tomorrow. Maybe she’d even get a reward or finder’s fee of some sort. God knew she could use the money. At this rate, she would never be able to afford curtains.
Ugh. 2:45 a.m.
She would be worthless tomorrow. Rolling over, she punched the on button of her electric blanket and slid the eye mask over her face, willing herself back to sleep.
*
Tanner felt the jolt down to his bones. Metaphorically speaking, of course—his physical bones were long disintegrated. As should have been his soul. Yet here he was. Honestly, he had no idea how to describe his current state of spiritual flux. His vocabulary and knowledge of the occult had been extensive before he found himself in this predicament. But now? His own semi-existence was beyond comprehension. Seeing the supernatural imposed on others was one thing. Experiencing it in a very personal and permanent way was another. He was certain there were words to put to his condition, but even they would be inadequate to accurately portray the horror of his current existence.
Between this spark and the first, his awareness peaked, full and intact. He’d been awakened—thoughts, memories, emotions, longings, fears. Everything about him was as it should be except for his physical body. And the fact he remained trapped inside an onyx stone.
Bloody witch.
Anger boiled within him. Neither his Major General nor his Masonic Brotherhood, the Brothers of Peril, had been any help against the witch’s hex. They’d been playing with fire. All of them. But it was he, Lieutenant James “Tanner” Dawson, who’d been burned. One for one thousand. That had been the bargain after Tanner refused Sylvia’s overt sexual advances. She’d been after him for weeks, but he had not time nor inclination to pursue her. Something was off about the woman. That, and she was a bona fide witch.
Tanner had been assigned as liaison to the witch when the Major General, Tanner, and a handful of others had been sent ahead to Fredericksburg to secure Chatham Manor as headquarters. The Major General had insisted upon employing a seer to ensure military success in the upcoming battles. After the fiasco at Bull Run, he was taking no more chances. The Brothers of Peril had been invoked. Confederate forces began forming across the river days later, upping the ante for them all.
Tanner closed his eyes, overcome by the flood of memories and regret.
“Sylvia. I’m sorry. You are by all accounts, and by my own eye, a beautiful woman. However, I find that I am simply not interested in you in that manner.”
She’d grabbed his hand, her eyes filled with faux sorrow as she twisted his ring around his finger.
Momentarily distracted by her odd behavior, Tanner laughed. “The prediction, Sylvia. The General waits.”
“You avail yourself of my spiritual talents but refuse my physical gifts when freely offered?” She lowered her gaze to his hand.
“Again, I—”
“All for one? Or one for all?” Sylvia asked him, her eyes red with rage as she lifted her gaze to his. He attempted to pull away from her but she held on tight. Not wanting to be rude, he let her.
“All for one? Or one for all? The Lieutenant’s choice shall determine the fall.
Lead the charge and win the day, or be the coward and run away.
Upon the Earth, his soul shall stay forever more and then a day.
Lest true love fill his spirit shell, his body rot while soul’s in cell.
Upon this mortal coil may stay, if somehow love does find a way.”
A sharp pain sliced across his palm and Tanner tore his hand free from her hold, all pretense of civility gone. The woman was clearly insane.
“You cut me?” Blood seeped from the fresh wound. “What are you doing?” Tanner backed away toward the door. “Do you have a prediction for the Major General or not?”
“His success depends on yours. You have my last word on the matter.”
Confounded, Tanner turned to the door and peeled back the tent flap. The afternoon sun streamed in, and he shielded his eyes against the harsh light. When he looked back, a fiery glow surrounded Sylvia. Dust motes danced about her like sparks as she smiled.
An icy shiver crawled up his spine, and he stepped from the tent.
It was only later as his wound was being treated that he realized she’d stolen his ring during their exchange.
He shook his head, trying to erase the memory. Of course, that one would stick most solidly in his psyche. It was the most oft played of all his days thus far. He hadn’t wanted to take her seriously, but her previous predictions had all proven to be accurate. The Major General had orchestrated a plethora of tests before accepting her advice. She had passed them all. Sylvia DeWitt, a direct descendant of a long line of witches stretching back to the dark days of Salem, was not a woman to be trifled with. Her ancestors had moved to Virginia from Salem, but still many had perished in the early days of witch hunting paranoia. It seemed the Puritans were right to have been paranoid.
A lesson Tanner would have done well to learn before he’d accepted the task of witch liaison.
Despite his efforts, he couldn’t stay the unpleasant reverie of that faithful day.
“Lieutenant Dawson, we need our orders.” Captain Newcomb stood in the open flap of Tanner’s tent. The Confederate threat had escalated. Waiting for the reinforcement battalion on its way from Richmond was no longer an option.
“I’ll deliver them myself. I’ll be there in a moment,” Tanner replied.
The tent flap closed and Tanner paced. If only he knew what those orders would be. He’d lay awake all of the long night struggling for a decision. Replaying the prediction in his mind, puzzling out Sylvia’s riddle, he’d realized it was much more than a mere prediction. He was sure it was a hex. And if his determination of Sylvia’s hex was correct, and he led the charge…he would die. If he didn’t lead the charge, the entire battalion of one thousand soldiers would die. It was a ridiculous predicament with only one solution.