by Glen Krisch
“We’ll always be there for you, Jack. I hope you’ve always known that. We’ve always had each other’s backs, right? We’ve had to, ever since we were little.”
He looked like he was going to head back toward the house, but he stopped short of leaving. “Do you believe in evil?”
“What, like people doing evil things, or do you mean Satan-type stuff?”
“I don’t know. Can you have one without the other? ”
“Are you being philosophical, or are you becoming religious?”
“I wonder … the evil humans … why do they do it? Are they born that way? Are they damaged in childhood? Or are they influenced by … something, I don’t know, other?”
“You’re talking about devils and demons.”
“I don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s just, sometimes, when I feel Nan close by, like she could reach out and touch me if I allowed it,” he said, shivering despite the afternoon’s warmth, “what I feel isn’t her. It’s darkness. It’s … it’s evil.”
“Well then, if you think it’s her, you’re clearly mistaken. There wasn’t a mean bone in her body.”
“I know. I know.”
“So if you feel she’s close by, what I think is that you feel guilty about how she died. You came for a visit and she—by sheer coincidence—happened to die that weekend. You think you could’ve stopped it, but you couldn’t have. You need to figure out how to forgive yourself.”
Jack listened intently, parsing her words like he were deciphering some mysterious code. He nodded, as if something had sunk in.
“I bet that’s it. You know, I think you’re right.” Jack hurried to her side and planted a kiss on her cheek.
She winced at the bristles, but he didn’t notice. He was already heading back toward the house. “You’re welcome?” she said.
“I’ll talk to you later, Krista. Thanks for listening!”
“What are big sisters for?” she said softly.
She chuckled at the drastic change in Jack’s attitude. She didn’t know how she helped him, but that didn’t matter. Sometimes all you needed was someone to listen.
She stood from the fallen log and gathered the pile of weeds Jack had pulled from around the gravesite, and tossed them into the woods.
“Oh, Nan, I miss you …” she whispered. “So does everyone … God, Jack could sure use your strength right about now.”
Krista felt silly speaking to the empty air. She had never been religious, had never believed in spirits or the afterlife, but if there were pearly gates somewhere, her grandma would surely qualify for entrance.
“I wish you were here. I need to know what to do about this map. I need to hear you explain to me why Poppa would’ve kept so much from me.” She blinked through tears, her gaze rising from the gravestone to the thin tree branches overhead. “I need to know what to do.”
“What you need to do,” a soft voice called out from the woods, “is get over yourself.”
Krista couldn’t pinpoint the sound. It could’ve come from anywhere. She heard rustling in the underbrush nearby and turned to face it.
“Who is it?” she said.
The voice sounded familiar, but it hadn’t been Nan’s. She closed in on the sounds of movement; a squirrel hopped into view before disappearing up a tree.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” the voice called out again, spinning Krista around.
Red hair like rust. Sprays of dark freckles across each cheek and the bridge of her nose. Demure and innocence in her composure, yet wild, with leaves and twigs dangling from the wisps coming from haphazard, braided pigtails. She sat on the log, legs crossed at the knee, hands clasped and resting on her thigh.
“Breann?”
“Hi Krista.”
The words weakened Krista’s legs. Her knees began to buckle. The blood in her brain seemed to have turned into molasses. Her vision began to dim and she stumbled over to the log. She sat down next to the dead girl to keep from face-planting next to Nan’s grave.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Breann said, barely a whisper. She looked first one way, then the other. “I don’t have much time.”
Krista braced her elbows on her knees and took several deep breaths until she felt like she wouldn’t pass out. She turned to her long-ago friend.
Breann hadn’t changed one bit. The redhead cocked her head to the side like she always had, staring at her with open curiosity. When Krista didn’t respond right away, the dead girl absently ran her tongue over the tip of her crooked eyetooth.
“Oh my God, it’s you,” Krista said.
Her hand lifted, spanning the short gap between them. She touched the warm soft skin of Breann’s shoulder, could smell coconut-scented suntan lotion and cherry Kool Aid.
“Of course, it is, silly.”
“I … I never thought I’d ever see you,” Krista said, finding it difficult to focus her thoughts. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?” Breann arched one eyebrow.
“For everything. For being stupid. For not understanding about Sandy Armstrong.”
“You know she was using you, right?” Breann said. “She didn’t like you, but Nan always drove you anywhere you wanted.”
The attitude, the snide tone … how could this not be Breann?
“I didn’t know,” Krista said, lightheaded. “I … I’m so sorry, Breann.”
Before her friend could say anymore, Krista wrapped her arms around her. The dead girl, so small. A tiny mass of frail bird bones beneath thin, freckle-spotted skin. She felt something else, something void, something akin to living shadow. She inhaled deeply, the cherry Kool-Aid and coconut beginning to sour.
Krista held her at arms’ length but didn’t let go.
“How are you here? Why are you here?”
“I’m not here,” Breann said. “Not really. Just like I wasn’t in the spare room playing with your Nan’s quilt the other night.” She laughed.
“But you are. You’re right here. I see you, feel you.”
Krista inhaled, the smell becoming stronger, more unavoidable.
“It’s a trick of light and shadow. I had to see you. Had to have you see me. Before it’s too late.”
“What … what do you mean?”
“I need your help.”
“Anything,” Krista said without thought.
“Find me.” Something crackled in Breann’s throat. Cartilage perhaps, twisted and torn under pressure. Bruises appeared on her neck, ringlets of red welts that quickly deepened to purple and black.
The dead girl had become something spoiled, something rotten and decayed, her many smells saturating the air, cloying within Krista’s nose. She wanted to run away, to vomit, but she couldn’t. Not when Breann was here and now.
“Of course, I will. But how? All these years … Where have you been?”
“I don’t know,” she said wetly. She coughed, spraying black blood over her lips and down her shirt.
“My grandpa, he knows something about this.” Krista glanced toward the house. She could see the angle of the roof, flashes of brown from the east-facing wall. “I’ll go ask him. I’ll have him tell me everything.”
The skin of Breann’s cheeks began to sag with rot, to pull away from the brittle bone beneath. Black oozed from the widening wound to gather on her lashes. She blinked, and dark blood splashed the grass below.
“He knows more than you, but nothing important.” Breann’s body was collapsing in on itself, as if clamped under immense pressure. Blood flowed freely from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. She struggled to breathe, though she no longer needed to obey that instinct reserved for the living. “He knows the man with the beautiful blue eyes took me … took the others, but that’s about it.”
“So, what am I supposed to do? How can I help yo
u?”
“Only one person knows where to find me.”
Breann fell to her back, blood leaving her body in rivulets. Her knees pulled close to her chest, remained pinned in place. Her arms wrapped her legs, and her entire body squeezed ever closer. Her eyes, now nothing more than open bloody wounds, let out a soft squelching noise as her orbs burst within her head.
Horrified, Krista backed away. She felt the urge to shout for help but remained mute.
“Find me …”
Blood bubbled up from what was once a mouth, coating the remains of her face, silencing her. Breann’s body twitched, shrinking in on itself, collapsing with a machine-gunning of shattered bones until there was nothing left but a stagnant puddle of gore.
Krista couldn’t take it anymore and closed her eyes. Her mind swam, ready to pass out. The scent of blood and rot filled her nose. She only opened her eyes when the scent began to fade, replaced by that of subtle sweet cherry Kool-Aid.
She was alone. Not a single blade of grass stained red. When she inhaled, even the memory of cherry was gone.
CHAPTER 24
Clara was nearly home.
She sipped from a water bottle before returning it to Poppa’s satchel. Motes of dust danced on the sunlight streaming through the tree branches. She held up the charm Breann had found at the end of Poppa’s map. At first, she thought the charm and chain were made of black metal, but the simple links caught the light, revealing hints of silver beneath heavy tarnish. She licked her thumb and rubbed the smooth surface of the heart-shaped charm until she discovered cursive lettering.
“What do we have here?” she whispered, furrowing her brow.
The world around her pulled away as she worked to free the words from the encrusted grime. The birds hushed. The wind ceased to blow. She focused hard, rubbing her thumb until the friction warmed the pad of flesh.
She uncovered one word: BEST
Undeterred, she used the hem of her shirt to scrub the heart. She tried to recall what had preceded her falling down the pile of rocks. Breann had been so mad, and for reasons Clara didn’t understand, and for reasons Melody didn’t seem willing to share.
A sensation of falling backward, then blinking in bright sunshine, her head woozy as she stared straight into the forested sky. She’d been flat on her back, and when she rubbed her aching temples, the little tarnished heart thumped against the side of her face, the chain interwoven with her fingers.
The two girls had left her alone in the middle of the woods.
The two girls … are they even girls at all?
The thought was pure insanity and she tried her best to move past it. Of course, they had merely been two girls. Two wild, bizarre girls who seemed to confine themselves to the woods and a narrow band of the Little Whisper’s beach.
She revealed a second word on the heart charm: FRIENDS
After another few scrubs, the third word became legible: FOREVER.
BEST FRIENDS FOREVER.
Clara’s heart ached and she didn’t know why. Perhaps because she didn’t have a best friend to call her own. Perhaps from the sadness of finding the heart buried in the middle of the woods. She started off again down the trail, soon reaching the lawn surrounding the summer house. She paused when she saw Aunt Leah and her cousins playing with croquet mallets. They didn’t seem to abide any rules but were having fun nonetheless.
Instead of interrupting their game and drawing unwanted attention, she hurriedly cut across the side of the house and then down the hill and around to the back. With weary legs, she trotted up the steps to the deck and slipped inside, breathing a sigh of relief when she slid the door closed.
She again looked at the charm—BEST FRIENDS FOREVER.
What question would that answer for Poppa? He had been waiting so long to find out, and yet she was reluctant to bring it to him.
She remembered Breann’s near-hysterical torment when she unearthed the jewelry box from the pile of stones. No good answers could ever come from something causing such emotional pain. But she’d promised Poppa …
Overwhelming fatigue settled into her muscles. After cutting across the kitchen, she listened for anyone she might encounter before reaching Poppa’s bedroom—all was quiet. The hardwood floor creaked, too loudly, as she made her way down the hallway. She stopped outside his door, knuckles poised an inch away from knocking. She chewed her bottom lip before screwing up her courage and opening the door.
Clara craned her head inside the doorway. Her great-grandfather was asleep, propped up high on a number of pillows. His skin an ugly gray. His cheeks drawn.
“Poppa?”
She breathed a sigh of relief when his chest moved and his eyelids fluttered open.
“Clarabelle …” The pain etched on his face faded as he forced a smile onto his lips. “Come in, come in.”
Clara stepped inside and closed the door, hesitating to go any farther. She held her hands clasped behind her back, the heart-shaped charm incredibly weighty dangling from her fingers.
“You look like you had some adventure.” His smile widened, no longer forced. “Take a look for yourself.”
Clara stepped in front of the mirror on top of Nan’s old dresser. She almost didn’t recognize herself. Her lightweight blouse had become untucked and sported smears of mud in varying states of drying. Her tan shorts weren’t much better. She could do little outside of taking a shower. She tried to straighten her hair, a nest of unbound curlicues. She removed a small leaf from a lock of hair, and when she patted her hair to look for more, the back of her skull throbbed from when she had fallen down the hill.
“I … I did, Poppa. I really did.” She didn’t know when she had started crying, or why, but her emotions were building and releasing, building and releasing, one wave after another.
“Oh, Clarabelle, what’s wrong, dear?”
“Poppa … I’m scared.” She paused to see his reaction. His bushy eyebrows tightened, but he said nothing. “I’m scared, but also excited. Is that even possible?”
“Anything is possible if you can imagine it. Tell me, Clarabelle, what’s troubling you?”
“I found this.” Clara held up the chain and the little heart swayed beneath it. Sunlight flashed when it caught certain angles. “The map led me to it.”
“Why, that’s a pretty thing, isn’t it?” He looked truly surprised. “Can I see it?”
He reached out, his hand trembling.
She didn’t immediately hand it over, not until his eyes shifted from the little tarnished charm to his great-granddaughter, his eyes steely and expectant.
“Please?”
She slipped the chain off her finger and handed it to him.
“I wonder whose it is?” he said in a frail voice.
“I thought you would know. That’s why you sent me out there, right? To answer the question at the end of the map?”
“I didn’t know what you would find. Not really. But certainly not this.” He blew at the heart and it twirled in a circle.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A girl’s charm.”
“Obviously. But whose charm is it?”
Poppa stared at the heart, as if hypnotized.
A name popped into Clara’s head and she blurted it out without a second thought. “Melody … is it Melody’s?”
Still transfixed, he didn’t seem fazed by the name. “I don’t know.”
This worried Clara. “Or is it Breann’s?”
“How do you …?” He finally looked at her. “Did you see …?” he said, short of breath.
“They helped me find my way. I was lost. I’d fallen down a hill. The girls found me. They brought me to the place where the heart was buried.”
“They’re not there. These girls … they shouldn’t have done that. That’s troubling.”
“What do
you mean?”
“Those girls, and there are others—probably a lot of others—they are confused, caught between here and there.”
“What … like, ghosts?” A chill ran through her.
“Something like that. I’ve seen … glimpses, now and then. Not of these girls, necessarily. But I’ve seen Nan. I don’t know what you’d call it—reanimated memory, fragments of forgotten emotion. I don’t know, and I don’t care. Every time it sends me to the moon and back knowing some part of her is so near.”
“Poppa, I don’t understand. How can this be? Ghosts aren’t real.”
“I know. You’re right. They’re not real. But they still exist. As do demons. As do angels.” He sat up taller against his pillow, took a deep breath, as if to bolster his energies. “Have you ever heard of the alien abduction myth? You know, little gray men with dark eyes come to earth to run medical experiments on us lowly humans?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of it. It’s kind of weird.”
“It is, isn’t it? Well, there’s a theory those little gray aliens don’t exist, but are also real.”
“How can that be?” Her head was starting to hurt.
“It’s theorized those memories of abduction have nothing to do with aliens, and everything to do with our own births. So, like I said, real and not real, simultaneously.”
“So, what about ghosts, demons, angels …?”
“They are neither here nor not here. They are lingering echoes that never fade away.”
“And why … why are these girls—Melody, Breann—why are they … haunting me?”
“Good question. But I wouldn’t say they’re exactly haunting you. Perhaps they’re able to communicate with you to a higher degree than other people. Maybe they see you as an ally. Someone who can help. Someone they can trust.”
“Help them do what, exactly?”
“Find peace?” Poppa turned his attention to the locket. “The map I drew for you, I never travelled the route it indicates. I got this from someone … someone I’m sorry I ever knew.”