The Keeper (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book 8)

by JL Bryan

  “We have always kept this lighthouse,” the woman in white said. From her appearance and clothing, I guessed she was Matty Verish, who'd kept the light for decades after her husband's death. “It will be yours now, little one. I cannot move on unless someone takes my place. The duty passes to you.”

  “Do I have to?” Steffy asked, shaking.

  Matty's hand seized her shoulder and squeezed tight. “It is our duty.”

  Steffy whimpered in pain. She seemed too scared to really cry out, and far too scared to fight back.

  Maybe it was just my non-physical state, but at the moment the living girl and the dead woman both looked equally substantial. Matty's face was stern, and she didn't exactly have a lot of laugh lines in her face. This was a deadly serious person, a no-nonsense person, possibly an entirely humorless and cold person.

  Despite the constant downpour that drenched Steffy, Matty looked dry, her clothes spotless and starched. I suppose that's a benefit of not being physical.

  “Matty,” a voice said beside me. I would've jumped if I had feet. William Verish was more solid and substantial than ever, advancing on the ghost of his wife.

  Steffy looked over, gasped, and ran directly toward us. Toward me. She tried to take my hand, but my hand wasn't really there. She frowned, but the ghosts began to speak before I could try to communicate with the little girl.

  The scene changed, too. Suddenly a third person was there, and now things were getting weird.

  While Steffy huddled close to me in the doorway, Matty remained at the railing, drawing herself up as tall she could.

  “Matty, what have you done?” William's ghost asked.

  The third ghost who'd appeared stood at the railing next to Matty. She was female, around the same age as the others, barefoot and clad in a simple cotton dress. Chains were looped around her body several times, pinning her arms to her torso, binding her legs together. A rag was stuffed into her mouth, gagging her.

  She whined and tried to move toward William, but Matty yanked her back with a length of chain, like a dog on a leash. Lightning struck the water nearby. Steffy cringed against the inner wall of the lighthouse, white as chalk, her eyes huge and her mouth trembling.

  I tried to reach out and comfort her. She could clearly see me, and I remembered our earlier discussion about whether Steffy might have some psychic sensitivity. It's common in small children, rare in adults.

  “You brought this fate upon yourselves!” Matty shouted to be heard over the storm. Her dress was damp and rippling in the wind now, the past and present fusing together in the presence of the ghosts and the lightning and rain. “Tonight is the time of judgment. We cannot raise our children in a home stained by your sin.”

  “Matty!” William stepped toward his wife. She yanked the chain, making the captive woman cry out in pain. “You have to let her go.”

  “I intend to,” Matty said. “As soon as you step up on this railing, William. And throw yourself over. That's the only way you can save her. Sacrifice your body to save your soul, William.”

  The captive woman winced and cried through her rag. She stomped her feet and looked over the railing with bulging eyes. Then she looked back at William. She seemed to be trying to tell him something.

  I started toward the chained woman, trying to see if I could figure out what she was saying.

  William moved forward at the same time, walking as I floated beside him. Weirdly, I seemed like the only ghost here. The others looked solid as they carried out their old memory, re-enacting their pre-death roles again, as ghosts often do, quite obsessively.

  “Henrietta,” he said, reaching toward the chained woman. This was clearly the wrong move, and Matty's face twisted up in anger. “Henrietta, I'll take care of this, I'll protect you—”

  Matty, glaring at her husband, released the chain. This happened just as I reached the railing myself, an invisible observer with no role in this scene, and I looked over and saw, with a stab of horror, just what Henrietta had been trying to tell William about.

  The far end of Henrietta's chain was attached to a hefty anchor, swinging just below the railing. Beyond it lay a long drop to the dark, stormy sea below.

  As William approached his mistress, Matty released the anchor and sent it plummeting toward the sea below.

  The chain grew taut just as William reached for Henrietta.

  Then the chain snatched her backwards, over the edge of the railing. She fell toward the deep water below, her cries muffled by her gag, her whole body twisting uselessly as she tumbled like a fly with its wings pulled off.

  “No!” William shouted, reaching the railing an instant too late. He looked over and howled as if in agony as she crashed into the water below. The anchor would instantly drag her to the bottom, drowning her in the storm-fueled swells.

  “You loved her,” Matty whispered. She raised a hefty lead bar in one hand. “The devil take you. You loved her.”

  Then she gave him a solid crack across the skull, knocking his boxy keeper's cap away. It fluttered out in the storm winds, toward the dark ocean below, where Henrietta had already disappeared beneath the waves. It occurred to me that it might have been Henrietta's ghost skulking around the house, rather than one of the slaves, because she'd died wrapped in chains, too. Killed by the wife of her lover.

  William staggered away from Matty, toward the doorway where Steffy crouched. I rushed over there to stand in front of Steffy, between her and the ghosts.

  The keeper stumbled down the stairs, his fingers holding a gash on the back of his head, blood leaking out between them.

  Matty followed him around the spiraling steps, patiently waiting a bit before striking him again, on the side of his head this time. He tumbled to his knees, roaring in pain. He kept moving, on his hands and knees now, his eyes closed against the blood pouring in from the new rupture.

  She was cat and mousing him, letting him crawl down blindly, allowing him to circle the tower a time or two before giving him another crack with the lead—now in the ribs, now in the back. She wanted to inflict suffering, to terrorize him, and she was succeeding.

  William spotted the window, its panes wide open to the storm outside. Rainwater poured in, flooding the floor below it, the water flowing away down the steps in a series of little waterfalls.

  He started to slosh his way over to the window. Matty followed, looking solemn, as though reciting prayers in her head.

  With the last of his strength, the light-keeper crawled to the window and placed his hands on either side, maybe trying desperately to escape, to die quickly, to throw himself into the violent ocean waters below.

  He didn't really have a chance to get away, not with his strength fading, not with Matty's determination to get some killing done tonight. She grabbed him by the back of his dark blue coat and hauled him away from the window.

  He turned toward her, drenched in rain, blood covering his whole face.

  “Please,” he whispered.

  “The Lord has spoken, William,” she said. “Adultery is a sin. My hands are tied.” Now she smiled, a cold and vicious look. “Just as her hands were tied, weren't they? It was the Lord who wove those chains around the harlot. I am only a vessel in His hands. And I shall always be. Now I must protect my children from your sin, husband.”

  “No,” he whispered. He looked incredibly weak, slipping and sliding in the rain water as he tried to pull himself toward the stairs, still trying to get away, to avoid suffering more blows. “No, please, the Lord teaches...forgiveness...”

  Matty cracked him one more time, right in the face, and I could hear his skull splinter. His nose turned to bloody mush.

  Then he sank to the watery floor and didn't rise again.

  Matty heaved him through the window. Her husband's body would be found later, out in the ocean, or maybe washed up on the beach, pecked by seagulls.

  “They keep doing that,” Steffy whispered. She stood by me on the stairs, watching the bloodshed below. “The same
people, the same things, over and over again.”

  “They're trapped in the drama of their deaths,” I said.

  “She wants me to join her.” Steffy reached for me. “Help me.”

  “Okay. But I might have to leave first, because I don't have my body with me. I need to tell everyone you're here so we can figure out how to rescue you.”

  “Can't you stop her?” Steffy whispered. “She's coming back.”

  “Now, child, resuming our lesson...this will only hurt a moment...” Matty stopped as she reached us. There was no longer any hint of blood on her hands or on her dress, which was completely dry again.

  The ghost had kidnapped her own great-great-something-grannddaughter to replace her in watching the lighthouse. It sounded like she meant for Steffy to do that in a ghostly form, too. Which meant Steffy would have to die.

  I was determined to stop that from happening.

  “Who are you?” Matty stared at me, her eyes turning into black whirlpools of fury, her teeth looking a little sharp and long. “Be gone from here. Foul spirit!”

  “You want to hurt this little girl?” I asked. “Who's the real foul spirit here?”

  “She has a purpose here. You do not.”

  “I disagree.”

  Then I imagined unleashing on her as I'd done with the magician's ghost, every dark and repressed emotion I had leaping out like little vultures to tear her apart. I imagined a sonic blast of feeling and raw spiritual power that basically took her head off and sent her on to the next world.

  Unfortunately, none of that happened. Something like an ineffective scream squeaked out of me, but nothing like what had happened in the magician's realm. I didn't have a pocket full of stolen souls fueling me anymore, and much of my substance was spread out in the space between here and my body back on land, in the form of a tether currently being gnawed and pulled at by some very unpleasant ghosts.

  In short, my attempted attack had virtually no power at all.

  “Begone!” Matty held up a hand. “I cast thee out, demon!”

  And, weirdly enough, that actually worked for her.

  I don't know whether this was just symbolic of her territorial power within the lighthouse, or whether my own recent choices had actually lent me an air of the demonic. Or maybe all her years of prayer and piety gave her spirit some real power.

  Whatever the cause, I instantly found myself flying back across the water at great speed, the dead watching me from just below the surface of the rising water.

  My return to my body was something of a crash landing. Everything shook and rattled, from my clacking teeth down to my toes.

  I opened my eyes to see Stacey sitting beside me.

  “The lighthouse,” I said. “She's at the top of the lighthouse. We have to go and save her.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The house was in chaos, with everybody frantically trying to find the missing girl. Stacey and I quickly rounded up everyone within shouting distance, and we met up in the living room. The rain was still pouring down outside, and lightning was striking the ocean every few seconds.

  “She's at the lighthouse!” I shouted. “We need to get across that water.”

  “How did she get out there?” Tammy asked.

  “How do you know?” Delavius asked.

  “We don't have time. How can we get over there? Stacey, the canoe, maybe? You're good at that nature junk.”

  “Normally, yeah,” she said. “But that's some dangerous water out there, and if it doesn't kill us, it'll still be slow going to fight our way out. There's that jet ski in the garage, but I actually haven't driven one of those. They're not eco-friendly.”

  “You know,” Hayden spoke up. “I once spent a summer at my cousin's lake house, and he had—”

  “Fine, you're going to ferry Stacey and me over on that jet ski. Go out to the garage, get it ready. Bring life jackets. Maybe Delavius will help you.”

  Hayden nodded and ran out of the room, wasting no time. Delavius looked at me suspiciously, but followed him.

  “And I'm going, too,” Tammy said. “It's my baby girl up there.”

  “Well, you also have your two other kids to think about,” I said. “This is going to be dangerous, but Stacey and I are professionals.”

  “You're professionals at rescuing kids from lighthouses?” Tammy asked. “How did she even—”

  “The ghost took her out there,” I said. “The ghost of Matty Verish. She's apparently looking for a new keeper for the lighthouse. And she'd prefer a family member. Someone young, energetic, and easy to train. Specifically, she'd prefer—”

  “Oh, my Lord.” Tammy covered her eyes and sank to the ground. Little Kyle clung close to her.

  “We'll be quick,” I said. “Stacey, do you have some of your camping and climbing junk out in your car?”

  “Yeah, like what?”

  “Rope. And a few other things. Let's run and see what you have. We don't have much time.”

  “What do the rest of us do?” Alyssa asked.

  “Stay calm,” I said. “And stay together. This ghost had the power to come over here, shatter the window, and haul Steffy across the distance to the lighthouse. She's strong and she's focused. She's dangerous.” I realized I was probably working against my own stay calm advice and made myself be quiet. “Stacey, let's go to your car.”

  After what seemed like a painfully long amount of time, during which the ghost of Matty had plenty of chances to drown Steffy and trap her soul in the lighthouse, I found myself climbing onto the jet ski behind Hayden. I watched the deep, churning water carefully, wary of the dead hiding within.

  It was a short trip through the rain and high waves, but a scary one, especially with the lightning popping all around.

  The door to the lighthouse was deep underwater, and the water level had risen to almost fill the window high above it, too. I would have to hold my breath and duck underwater, but I could make it through. Hayden drove me over there, and I made a slow, clumsy transition from the bobbing jet ski to the window, entering it like an underwater cave.

  The empty panes swung open, and I hauled myself into the flooded lighthouse. I sat on the steps, dripping wet from the rain outside, and caught my breath while the jet ski raced away.

  The inside of the lighthouse echoed with sounds of dripping water. I clicked on my flashlight and looked around for any sign of the keeper's ghost as I made my way up.

  “Steffy!” I called, as loud as I could. “I'm here. Where are you?”

  There was no response from the darkness above.

  I hurried upward, my heart pounding. It might have been safer to wait for Stacey to join me, but I couldn't just sit there and do nothing while the girl's fate was unknown. I was terrified that I'd find her body up there. Or maybe nothing at all, the ghost having thrown the girl into the sea like an offering to a primordial god of the deep.

  Feeling sick, I ran around the twisting old stairs, each step taking an eternity, the wet life jacket weighing me down and keeping my pace unbearably slow. I could hear my breath echoing in my ears.

  I called for the girl again and again. If she replied, her voice was lost in the storm.

  Finally I emerged through the doorway at the top of the house, under the big empty square frames of the old lantern room, and out onto the circular walkway. I saw nobody at first, so I ran around it.

  The little girl was on the other side of the walkway. She stood on her tiptoes, her eyes rolling way back into her sockets, leaving only the whites visible. Her breath was a pained sucking sound.

  Beside her stood the apparition of Matty Verish, clearer than ever, almost glowing. She had one hand just above the little girl's head, as though giving a benediction, but it looked more like she was feeding on the girl, sucking out her energy.

  Her other hand pointed at the lantern room above us. Faint, ghostly light glowed in it, the light we'd seen from the ground. She was using her great-great-whatever-granddaughter's life energy to restor
e the long-darkened light.

  I bolted toward Steffy, screaming her name. The girl was unresponsive, swaying on her tiptoes, her mouth moving soundlessly.

  Just before I could grab her, something hammered into my chest, hurling me back into the granite wall behind me. Pain rattled all up and down my spine.

  The gauzy white apparition of Matty Verish moved toward me, anger on her face. I had the feeling anger was etched onto her face pretty permanently, even back when she'd been alive.

  “You would murder this girl,” I said. “The way you murdered your husband and the other woman. You lured them here. First you wrote that letter. You tricked her into coming out to the lighthouse during the storm, and you captured her. Then you put out the light, you snuffed out the huge candle. That lured your husband out into the storm that night. He was coming to relight it. But you were waiting for him, with her all tied up...and you killed them both.”

  As I spoke, I removed the life preserver and tossed it toward Steffy. The girl was swaying in the rain, still entranced.

  “Justice is not murder.” Matty's apparition said as she stalked toward me, jaw stern and eyes burning. “What is sinful must be removed and cast into the flame.”

  “You even kept the letter as a souvenir,” I said. “You must have taken it back from her when she arrived here to meet your husband. You wanted it back because you were proud of what a clever job you'd done, murdering them and blaming it on the storm. Covering your tracks. It was William's ghost that showed me where to find that letter, did you know that?”

  As I spoke, she drew closer to me, the apparition becoming sharper.

  Meanwhile, the ghostly light above began to fade. Steffy rubbed her eyes. She was coming out of her trance while I kept Matty distracted.

  The little girl picked up the life jacket and gave me a puzzled look. I responded with a slight nod, and she began pulling it on, groggily, not exactly sure how to do it, and probably feeling pretty confused in general. I didn't dare try to help and risk drawing Matty's attention back to her.

  “Your keeping the letter was a sign of your pride,” I said to Matty while Steffy came around behind her. “Pride and murder are hardly the traits of an upright, virtuous person.”