Wings to the Kingdom E-Book

Cherie Priest

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 553

Beschreibung

Eden Moore can see dead people, or rather, she can see ghosts. However, when reports emerge of silent spectres in ragged uniforms appearing on the fields at of Chickamauga, Georgia—America's oldest military park— terrifying tourists and park rangers alike, Eden is not interested, preferring to let a team of celebrity ghost hunters answer the spirits' plea. Why do the ghostly soldiers march again? The apparitions need an intermediary, someone who can speak to them, and for them. Eventually reluctant medium, Eden, is drawn to the heart of the unearthly mystery.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by Cherie Priest

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

One: A Dark and Bloody Ground

Two: Two Steps Back

Three: Home Sweet

Four: ABC

Five: Down by the River

Six: The Displaced

Seven: Rising Again

Eight: The Midnight Run

Nine: Brother Against…

Ten: What Whispers

Eleven: Digging for More

Twelve: Visiting Unannounced

Thirteen: Back to the Battlefield

Fourteen: Aftermath

Fifteen: Fresh Resolve

Sixteen: The Recovery

Seventeen: Invited

Eighteen: Winding Down

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Available from Titan Books

ALSO BY CHERIE PRIEST AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

CHESHIRE RED REPORTSBloodshotHellbent

EDEN MOOREFour and Twenty BlackbirdsNot Flesh Nor Feathers

WINGS TO THE KINGDOMPrint edition ISBN: 9780857687739E-book edition ISBN: 9780857687883

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: May 20121 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2© 2006, 2012 by Cherie Priest. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

This edition published by arrangement with Tor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE TWO GROUPS I’M SURE TO MISS MOST: MY FORMER COWORKERS AND MANAGERS AT MARS INTERACTIVE, AND THE RESIDENTS OF THE VILLAINOUS LAIR—PAST AND PRESENT.

To Mars,Where I always loved the people I worked with, even when I didn’t love the work. The support, flexibility, and encouragement have been invaluable, and deeply appreciated.(And yes, Powell, this means you, too.)

And to the Lairmates,Many thanks for the parties, the cons, the clothes, the cat traps, and the company. I am endlessly grateful for the way your home has always been a soft place to land. You and yours have always made me feel safe.

ONE

A DARK AND BLOODY GROUND

The first time it happened—the first time anyone admits to it, anyway—was at a Decoration Day picnic being held at the battlefield at Chickamauga, Georgia. Several dozen doddering representatives of the Sons of Confederate Veterans had come together on a fine June afternoon for chicken-salad sandwiches and punch. Some sat in metal folding chairs, with their wives at their elbows, while others shuffled around the buffet table in search of the correct sliced cheese or condiment.

With so many aggravatingly credible witnesses, there was no denying that something strange had happened. People would argue the details for weeks, but this is the version I caught first. I suppose the best thing to do is tell it the local way—which is to say, this is partly how I heard it happened, and partly how I bet it happened.

* * *

He was confused to find himself in the woods.

Why would he leave us?

The soldier didn’t remember falling in the trees, and what he did remember of trees came to him in hazy fragments of gold and red—not this dark-shadowed hollow where he first arose.

Above, the canopy was green; and below, the ground was covered with new, sprouting things. Back when last he’d seen it, this had been a field. He was nearly certain of it. This whole place had been made of fields and farms, or then again, maybe it hadn’t. Maybe, if he concentrated, he could capture something else—the pressure of his arm against a tree and a squint that made his forehead ache as he leveled his rifle. How tough it must have been to fire with all those trunks in the way, with all that smoke in his eyes. How difficult to aim with all that noise in the woods around him.

How did he ever send off a single shot?

The harder he thought about it, the farther into the distance the details fled. Holding still meant holding on a few moments more, but all he could keep for sure was a dim memory of sound and smelly haze, and a nagging sense of hunger.

Beyond the trees he could hear people sounds, and they weren’t the sort of sounds that warned of trouble. He homed in on the clattering of forks and the papery flutter of napkins. He dragged himself on towards the staccato hum of voices and hoped for the best.

He came up from behind the hill, walking slow and careful. The land looked so different now. Nothing familiar at all. Everything was lush and trim and tidy. He listened again, and considered the noises. They were lunch noises, or the sounds of a nice party. How strange that would be, if this place had become a garden while they slept. The more he considered it, the more likely and likeable he found the idea. It was nice to think of the green-eyed keeper as a gardener, rather than an undertaker.

A rough road headed more or less in the direction of the people, so he stumbled up to the edge and started walking.

Where did he go? Why would he leave us?

As he pulled himself along, foot over foot down the rutted strip of dirt and gravel, he considered how he might deliver his message. He didn’t know what he looked like, but it was safe to guess that the years had not been kind. Time was hard enough on the living.

These people might not listen for long. They might run away before he had a chance to tell them how wrong everything had become. He’d better condense as much as possible. But how? And how to begin?

The green-eyed one, he’s gone. He left us.

No, may as well leave that part out, for surely the world had noticed that much. The odds were good they were already wondering where he’d gone. For all he knew, they could even be looking for him.

Two men made a bargain.

No. Unnecessary backstory. Skip that bit. They might even figure that part out on their own, once they got the rest of it squared away. That was the key, then. Tell them enough so they could work out the rest for themselves.

Do you know that house, back at the other end of the field?

Better. Give them a starting point. Set them on the right track. Start with the house, and the field. Start with what lies behind it, and beneath it. Good. He had a plan, then.

In another time and under different circumstances, he hadn’t cared much for plans; but now was as good a time as any to give organized foresight a shot. With a little more thinking, he trimmed his plan down to just two words. Two words would get things going. Two words would show them where to begin.

A huge wheeled vehicle came roaring around a curve, and he froze. He knew the sound; he’d heard it for years, always in the faraway world above. Still, it startled him to meet it so close and see the source. The thing was rounder than any cart he’d ever seen, and it moved like a train without any tracks—fast and rough over the rocky, dusty strip of road.

Behind a pane of curved glass, a pair of distorted outlines indicated people within the fast-moving car. One of them pointed, the car swerved, and the two right wheels slid off into the grass.

They saw me.

He withdrew, back to the tree line. He didn’t want to frighten everyone off before he could share his brief message. If they ran away before he could speak, all this trouble would have been for nothing.

The wayward wheels crawled back onto the dirt, flinging gravel out behind them.

He watched the thing retreat. Carefully then. He would make his way to the gathering the old way, the scout’s way. He hadn’t been much of a scout, truth be known; but if he could watch them for a bit it might be easier to approach them. It might be easier to speak to the group if he knew what sort of people were in it.

He stumbled and caught himself, wincing with the effort; but the wince was more a habit than a physical reaction. Nothing hurt, exactly, but tremendous concentration was required to pull himself together. Holding everything in one piece, it was like flexing a muscle—not quite so hard or short-lived as holding in a breath of air, but not so easy that he could keep it up for long.

His fingers crushed themselves into a fist, driving his dirty-looking nails into his palm. He barely felt it. He had to watch himself squeeze the knuckles tight or else he wouldn’t have believed it. Nothing felt like anything. Something told him that if he ran his head into the nearest oak, it wouldn’t matter to either the tree or his skull.

A loud, sudden laugh from the nearby party reminded him why he was doing this.

Find someone to tell.

Forget the rest. Hold it together long enough to talk.

Between the branches he spied a flapping white tablecloth trimmed with red and blue. A stray napkin swayed to the grass, and a high-heeled shoe stabbed it into the earth. An older woman in a powder-blue suit bent her knee and plucked the napkin away. She turned to a man beside her and accepted a very thin plate loaded with brightly colored food. Behind them, there were twenty or so rows of chairs lined up neatly, and most of these chairs were occupied by other people with similar plates of food.

If he could read, then the banner hanging over the gathering might have told him something helpful, or then again, it might have only confused him. He wondered what it said. One word looked familiar; it was a long word beginning with a “C.” He felt he ought to recognize it, but he didn’t; so he decided not to dwell on it. Letters had never been his strong suit.

It didn’t matter, anyway. He’d found the party he was looking for, and they were a promising bunch of folks. They were older, so some of them were bound to be respectable; but they were not so old that others wouldn’t take them seriously.

The longer he watched, the more certain he became. Yes. These people would listen. He skirted the edge of the clearing, darting from tree to tree, drawing closer, trying to see their faces.

One man in particular looked like a promising contact. He had a certain leanness in his cheeks, and a slouch that struck the ghost as being familiar in some unspecific, mostly forgotten way. This man was standing beside a woman with bright blond hair that sat immobile on her head like a round yellow crown. She scratched at her wedding ring and tugged at her cuff while the thin-faced man talked to two other men.

The lurking shade closed his eyes and thought hard, willing his form as close to solid as he could come. He forced himself to recall as much detail as he could, conjuring up the dull gray jacket and with it the tarnished buttons, the shapeless pants, and his badly battered cap.

When he was dressed, and when he was as ready as he could make himself, he stepped forward into the sunny patch of grass.

At first, no one noticed.

He was still a few yards from the group, so he drew himself closer to them, nearer to the one who had caught his attention. The ghost moved with care, so as not to startle them. He fixed his eyes on the thin, casually slumping man with the bored-looking wife and pulled himself towards the neat forest of metal chairs.

The wife spotted him first.

He knew she saw him—she froze her idle scratching and polite, agreeable nodding to stare directly at him. The ghost paused, not wanting to frighten her into a scream.

To her credit, she did not cry out. Her eyes widened and her head cocked to the right, but she lifted her hand to her lips and covered them up as if she wasn’t sure what might pass through.

“Evan,” she breathed between her fingers.

“Dear?” her husband answered fast from the middle of his conversation. He dropped the syllable without looking at her.

“Oh, Evan, ”she repeated, this time reaching out to touch his arm. “My God, but look at him. ”

“What?”

“Look at him. Look at him, Evan. Doesn’t he look like—”

Evan sighed and turned from his group. “Look at who, darling?”

“Him. ”

The figure in question stretched himself up to his full height, and held up his chin. He assumed a stance of formal attention and waited.

Throughout the gathering, all the small conversations dried up and all the happily chatting faces went limp. Evan dropped his plastic glass. It toppled to the grass with a splash and a thud, spilling purple punch across his new shoes—though he wouldn’t notice the stain for days.

Satisfied that he had everyone’s full, undivided attention, the ghost opened his mouth. But no sound followed. Frustrated, he closed his mouth and opened it again.

Still, nothing.

Just two words, he swore to himself. Why can’t I say it?

He shook his head and tried a third time, but he couldn’t utter a single, raspy gasp. It made him angry: all that preparation, all that effort, and all that trouble, and here he was, right where he’d meant to go, but he couldn’t tell them a damn thing. And to make things worse, he could feel his hold slipping. It would not be long before he lost control over the people’s shocked silence and his own physical form.

No words, then. Quickly. Before the moment had time to pass.

He raised his right arm and pointed, as hard as he could. He aimed his hand across the pretty clearing, and beyond the trees beside it, and over the creek and through the fields of waving green grass to a point that no one could see.

And then he disappeared.

TWO

TWO STEPS BACK

I bet myself a dollar that he’d pull a picture out of his wallet within fifteen seconds of introducing himself. I only won fifty cents from that wager: he pulled it from his jacket pocket instead.

“Eden? I’m Gary. This is my little girl. Her name’s Casey.”

“She was beautiful,” I replied, contradicting his verb choice.

If he noticed, he didn’t bother to correct me. “Yes.”

The man thumbed at the photograph in a sad sham of removing a smudge. He dug the pads of his thumbs into the glossy the way they all do—as if, should he rub hard enough, he might thrust his way through and find flesh beneath the paper.

“It’s been over a year.”

“I’m sorry, Gary.” I’d learned it was best if I began apologizing early on in these conversations. Things sometimes went more smoothly if they’d grown accustomed to hearing it by the time I had to break their hearts.

Gary put the picture down on the round, marble-top table between us and smoothed it with his palm. “No, I’m sorry. You were just trying to have a cup of coffee and I’m bothering you.”

I put my mug down and closed my book. “It’s okay.”

“I guess you get this a lot, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. And it never gets any easier.

He dragged his attention away from the photo. At least he looked me in the eyes when he said the next part. “I was hoping you could help. Is there any way you could talk to her for me? I just want to know she’s all right.”

Sometimes they don’t ask so directly. Sometimes they’re so torn between being desperate and being ashamed that they stare at their hands, or at the floor. It’s all they can do to mumble their plea, and they often try to phrase it as though they can’t imagine I might say yes in a million years… because God knows they don’t believe in that sort of thing, anyway.

But just in case, they have to ask.

“I would be…” I stalled, and started again. “I would love to help you, but I don’t think I can. And it’s not because I don’t want to, because I do. But—”

He cut me off there, and he lifted a brown satchel into his lap. “Oh, I know you need information, and I’ve brought it. I’ve got all the newspaper clippings from her kidnapping, and I’ve got the follow-up articles about the guy who did it; and I don’t know how this works exactly, so I brought some of her things for you to touch if that helps.”

“Gary—”

“I’ve got her first tooth, too.” Out from the bag he lifted a blue plastic container on a cord. “She got a dollar for it. It’s clean, don’t worry. It’s a couple of years old now. Here.”

I didn’t object fast enough. He clasped my hand in his and the tiny pebble tooth toppled down. I closed my fingers to keep from dropping it.

“Let me try to explain, please. I need for you to understand.”

He nodded hard, nearly shaking his glasses loose.

I took a deep breath.

“One time, when I was in high school, we had a new guy join our class. The teacher made him stand up and tell everyone who he was and where he was from. His name was Jake, as it turns out, and he’d transferred to our school from Texas.

“This one girl sitting behind him got all excited when she heard the ‘Texas’ part. When he sat down, she poked him on the shoulder and told him, ‘I’ve got a cousin who lives in Texas. Her name is Amy Abernathy. Do you know her?’ And everyone laughed at her.” I stopped there, seeing if he’d pick up the prompt.

“I bet they did. That was a pretty stupid question.” Gary fidgeted and picked up his daughter’s picture, fussing with it again.

“Well, under different circumstances it might not have been so dumb. Say, maybe her cousin mentioned someone with the same name as the new guy. It would be a coincidence if it turned out they knew each other, but it wouldn’t be a miracle or anything. Right?”

“Right,” he said, but his heart wasn’t in the agreement. I think he knew where I was headed.

“Or maybe if she was from another country, and she didn’t understand that Texas is a huge place with millions of people in it—then it wouldn’t be such a crazy question for her to ask either. Maybe, for all she knew, Texas was no bigger than a city block.”

“But it is. Much bigger.”

“Yes, it is.” I put the little tooth back into its case and pushed the case back to Gary’s side of the table. “Do you get what I mean?”

He tapped a fingernail at the tooth case for a few seconds, trying to decide how best to argue. “But being dead isn’t like being in Texas,” he finally said, and I could hear stubbornness working its way into his voice.

“You’re right, it’s not.”

“Then why won’t you try to talk to Casey for me?” He said the words slowly; he needed time to fortify each consonant against whatever I might say next.

“Gary, if Casey were in Texas, I would know where to begin looking for her. I could drive out there—I could look her up in the phone book. But imagine, for a second, that she could be anywhere at all in the entire world. But wherever she is, there aren’t any phones, and no matter how loud I shout, she won’t hear me.”

“Eden—”

“And for that matter, there’s a better-than-average chance that she’s not even here anymore. Listen—when most people die, they don’t hang around. I don’t know where they go, and I don’t know how far away it is, but it’s someplace that’s… well, it’s not here.”

“But some of them stay. You know they do. You’ve seen them.”

“Yes, some of them do. And the ones who do are free to make contact with me if they like, but I don’t have the foggiest idea how to bring them around. Do you understand?”

Clearly, he did not. “But you could try. You could ask around, or something. If you really wanted to.”

“Ask around? Gary, now we’re right back to the Texas analogy. Let me ask you something, and I am asking in all seriousness—without any intention of making fun of you.”

“Go ahead.”

“Have you prayed to Casey at all? And I’m using the word ‘pray’ in the very broadest sense—I mean, have you tried to talk to her yourself?” I already knew he had. Of course he had. They always do. I think it’s part of the “bargaining” stage of grief.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve been praying to her, but I’ve asked… if she might come have a word with me.”

“And you’ve never heard, or felt, or seen anything to indicate she heard you?”

“No. But that’s why I came to you.”

I took another deep breath, and then a third. I was getting frustrated with this poor man, and I knew that we were coming to a point in our conversation where he was only going to try my patience more. “Why would it be different if I tried to call her? You’re her father, and I’m a total stranger. I don’t believe that she could hear me any better than she can hear you.”

“But you could see her if she did come. Couldn’t you? And I can’t.”

“I think that probably, yes, I could see her if she answered you. But I also think that you’d get some sense of her presence too. Or maybe not, I don’t know. What I’m trying to tell you is this, Gary: unless she’s standing beside you right this second, there’s no way at all for me to communicate with her.”

He dropped the tooth container into his satchel and clutched the picture with both hands. “She isn’t, then? She’s not here with me?”

I could have fed him a line about how she was always with him in his heart, but such a trite sentiment would have only made us both angry. He wanted to know if his daughter was with him still—in a literal, if intangible, sense. We both knew the answer already, but someone had to say it out loud. That was the real reason he’d tracked me down.

I tried to say it gently. “If Casey were still here and she knew you were trying to reach her, she’d stay close to you. She was a daddy’s girl, right?” It was an easy guess.

“Oh yes.” He was crying now, fat and quiet tears.

I pushed my napkin against his knuckles, and he took it. “And if she needed something, or if she was in some kind of trouble, you’d be the go-to guy, wouldn’t you?”

He pressed the napkin to his face and bobbed his head.

“You said you came here because you wanted to know if she was all right. Well, I think it’s safe to assume that she is. If she wasn’t, she’d be trying to tell you. But she’s not trying to communicate, at least not that I can see.”

The mug-sized square of ephemeral coffeehouse napkin proved no match for Gary’s grief, so I fumbled for my purse and managed to scare up a couple of proper tissues.

“You’re not even going to try then, are you?” he sniffled, stuffing the picture back into his jacket pocket. “Is it because I didn’t offer you any money? I don’t have much but—”

“Money? I didn’t ask you for any money.”

I felt like I was sitting in the front car of a roller coaster, and cresting that first big hump. Here we go. Once money’s come up, there’s nothing I can say or do to keep the talk from plummeting downhill. This is always the hardest part, and it always makes me angry, because it hurts my feelings.

“Of course you didn’t. Because then it would be extortion, wouldn’t it? That’s why all the TV commercials for the psychic lines say in the small print, ‘for entertainment purposes only.’ That way, if they’re wrong you can’t sue them. But you pretend to be the real thing—you’re like one of those escort service girls who acts like no money needs to change hands in order to get results. I get it. I see.”

Ah, now we were rolling. Which to get defensive about first—the implication that I was a fraud, or the comparison to a hooker?

And I know, I know. The man was in pain, and he came to me seeking some comfort. I should have forgiven him for his misdirected anger; I should have been tolerant of his agony, and forgiven his terrible manners for his loss. I should have tried to help him. For what it’s worth, I did forgive him. And I was tolerant. And I did try to help him. Yet for all that, I was still just a lying whore because I wouldn’t tell the man what he wanted to hear.

I folded my hands around my coffee cup and sat back in the ironwork chair. “First of all I have never, not even once, claimed to be a medium. On the contrary, I’ve spent the last year of my life hiding—rather unsuccessfully, it would seem—from people like you who want to assign me that title. And second, I wouldn’t take your money if you threw it at me. If I could help you, I would—and I’d do it for nothing. But I can’t. I’m sorry for your loss, but there’s nothing I can do for you. If you’re not okay with that, you need to leave.”

He stood to leave, still crying. Still grasping my tissues.

I exhaled my entire collection of deeply drawn breaths as the door closed behind him.

Similar scenarios had played themselves out so frequently that I’d given up hope for a different ending. Sometimes it took longer for the bereaved to go from grief-stricken and vulnerable to wishing that I, personally, were dead, but the end result was always the same.

And I don’t know how they find me—it’s not like I put an ad in the paper. Maybe they track me down through online rumors, or my name is written on a bathroom wall somewhere. I wonder sometimes what the gossip says. Does it mention me by name? There has to be more to it than “Biracial Southern girl chats up dead people. Come visit the Scenic City and see if you can sucker her into a reading.”

If I could find it myself, I’d delete or wash away every word.

My coffee had gone tepid. I wandered over to the counter and talked someone into trashing it in the sink for me, then reclaimed the cup for a fresh hit of caffeine.

Behind me, the glass door swooshed open again, and I heard the electric hum of a familiar wheelchair. As usual, the sound of the chair was shadowed closely by four paws clapping on the tile floor.

“Hey, Karl,” I said over my shoulder as I pumped myself a refill from the air pot on the counter. “And hey, Cowboy,” I added towards the shaggy brute beside him. I finished my top-off and reached for the creamer.

Karl joysticked himself up to me so that his floppy, feathered cowboy hat hovered beside my shoulder. His diligent sheltie sidekick assumed a politely seated position on the floor.

“You’ve sure got a way with people.” He grinned. “You make ’em cry faster than that Barbara Walters woman.”

“Thanks. I think.” I grabbed a brown plastic stirring stick and swirled my beverage until it turned a uniform beige. I faced him then, leaning my rear against the counter. “And what brings you two old coots downtown today? Anything special?”

“Just you, beautiful. I’ve got a weakness for brunettes, you know.” He winked and wiggled his graying mustache at me.

“And blondes. And redheads.” I reached down and tugged at the brim of his hat, winking back without any real mirth. “And I bet you say that to all the girls who chase people out of the shop in tears.”

His laugh was a rough, low sound that managed to carry a Southern accent even without any vowels. That man could clear his throat in a thunderstorm and you’d be able to hear he was a local.

“You’ve got me there. But I mean it—I was hoping you’d be out and about. Join you at your table?” He and Cowboy were already halfway to Gary’s freshly vacated spot, and I wouldn’t have told him no anyway. Instead, I pulled the seat out to make room for his chair and kicked my purse under the table so Cowboy wouldn’t have to lie on it.

“You want some coffee?”

“Got some.” He waved a foam to-go cup with one hand and a newspaper with the other. “Have you looked at today’s paper?”

“Not likely. Haven’t needed to line any litter boxes since this morning.”

He snorted, and Cowboy’s ears perked, then settled again. “Then I guess no one else has showed you yet.”

“Showed me what?” I asked as a matter of formality, but just as I’d known that Gary would have a photograph on him, I might have known that Karl would have a ghost story. If he hadn’t been holding the newspaper, I’d have guessed he’d come to me bearing a new bad joke. Not a dirty or off-color joke, just a bad joke—one that would take at least ten minutes to wend its slow, painful way to a punch line.

“This article about what happened at the battlefield over Decoration Day.”

I like Karl’s jokes better than his ghost stories, but it was nothing personal, and it had nothing to do with his easygoing narrative style. It’s like I said once before about there being no such thing as old news in the South. Likewise, there is no such thing as a private matter.

On the Internet someplace there’s a list of things you’ll never hear a Southerner say. I’ve seen it, and I think it’s funny—though I’d love to add in the phrase “But it was none of my business, so I didn’t ask.” News or a damn good story will always find its way out, so ever since the whole mess with Malachi I’ve been a lightning rod for spooky anecdotes.

All of that having been said, by the time Karl showed me the article I had heard no fewer than a dozen versions of the Decoration Day incident at the Chickamauga Battlefield.

The story made the rounds in the valley with a speed that would shame a wildfire. Of course it expanded with each retelling until the saga came to include a regiment of skeletal Union ghosts, a couple of soldierless spook horses, a bloody-headed drummer boy, and at least two bugling wraiths who foretold the imminent rebirth and rise of the Confederacy.

So you had to understand my skepticism.

“You just look right here—they hid it on the third page, but it made it in all the same.” Karl unfolded the Times Free Press and sorted it out, seeking a certain picture and finding it. He bent the third page double, nudged my coffee cup out of the way, and pushed the paper forward.

“‘No Leads Yet in the Disappearance of Ryan Boynton.’”

“No, not that one.” He tapped the paper, down below the headline I’d just read.

“‘Mystery at Battlefield Park,’” I tried again, and he approved. “Sounds like a Nancy Drew title.”

He patted at the columns with two long, bony fingers. “Go on and read it. Look what it says about Decoration Day.”

“‘The first unusual incident took place at a Sons of Confederate Veterans gathering, attended by nearly sixty people who claimed their picnic was visited by a ghost. According to eyewitnesses, the specter of a young soldier approached the group and tried to speak, but he seemed unable to communicate. Before he vanished, the ghost pointed at the woods.

“‘One witness, Edna-Anne Macomber, insists that the soldier bore a strong resemblance to her husband at the age of twenty—prompting speculation that the unexpected visitor may have been her husband’s great-uncle. “He had the same-shaped face, and the same way of standing. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when I saw him there. He looked right at us,” Mrs. Macomber claims. “And he knew it too. That’s why he chose us, I think. He knew Evan when he saw him.”

“‘Jeremiah Macomber fought with the Deas Brigade for the 19th Alabama regiment. He died in the Battle of Chickamauga on the first day of fighting, September 19, 1863.’”

I put the paper down and shrugged. “That wouldn’t be too surprising, I guess. Maybe that is what drew old Jeremiah out in the first place—he spotted the family resemblance.”

Karl got all excited. “You think it’s true? You think some old soldier crashed the picnic?” He shifted around in his chair and gripped the brim of his hat with glee.

“I can’t say it’d shock me.” I tried and failed to remember a few details from a long-ago school trip to the battlefield visitors’ center. “How many people died out there, anyway?”

“A lot.” He beamed.

“I should’ve paid better attention in history class. But we know that a lot of people died under violent and painful circumstances. I’d be astounded if there weren’t any ghosts out there.”

“But you don’t hear a lot of ghost stories about the battlefield. You get stories about Old Green Eyes instead.”

“Yeah,” I said, though that fact was something I’d always found strange. Thousands and thousands of dead soldiers are buried in the park, and most of the scary stories passed around campfires were about a made-up monster instead of the logical legions of war dead.

Karl must have been thinking the same thing. “There’s a couple of stories about the tower in that field, and there’s one or two about weeping widows roaming the grounds looking for their husbands; but for the most part Green Eyes gets all the good lines.”

“The villain always does.”

“Now that’s true. I wonder why?”

I tossed my head to the left in half a shrug. “I couldn’t tell you.”

“Do you believe in him?” he asked, leaning forward. I’d given him an inch, and here he came chasing after me for a mile.

A year or two before I might have said no, but I’d had my horizons broadened a bit since then. “I don’t know. I’ve talked to people who’d swear on their mothers’ graves they’d seen him, but that doesn’t mean anything. One of them was Mike, for God’s sake.”

“Mike’s the one who got drunk and fell off the roof of the library?”

“That’s him,” I confirmed. “He was trying to prove he could rock-climb at three in the morning. He used to live out by the battlefield, in the subdivision on the other side of the train tracks. You know—there on the edge of the park. Mike and his brother have a million and one Green Eyes stories, but since most of them start off with a case of beer I’m not inclined to take them very seriously.”

Karl tapped the paper again. “But this—this looks like something you could sink your teeth into, doesn’t it? This is the sort of thing that you could maybe confirm, at least some of the little details.”

“Maybe.” I crooked my neck and examined the picture posted beside the story. The square black-and-white frame held a shot of a starry-eyed older woman with her arms crossed beneath her breasts. Edna-Anne, I gathered, even before I checked the caption. “I wonder if there are any pictures of this Jeremiah guy? Something you could show people for comparison’s sake. If Edna-Anne could pull him out of a line-up, that’d be something.”

“There might be pictures, there might be. And if there are, you can bet Tripp and Dana will dig them up.”

I started to ask who he meant, but the answer dawned on me before I could broach the question. “The Gruesome Twosome? Are they coming here to look into this? Oh, good grief.”

“What?” He brushed his hand to his chest in pretended affront. Then he said exactly what I should have expected from someone who’d never left the valley. “But they’re famous. And I hear that the people at the battlefield actually asked them to come out and look into this. Rumor has it, they’re going to bring all that fancy equipment and set up for a few nights. Taking pictures, and getting readings and things.”

“They must be working on another book.”

Dana and Tripp Marshall were such well-known ghost hunters that even I had heard of them. Their shtick had a one-two punch: she had left an engineering career with NASA, and he was a psychic who claimed to have worked for the FBI. Their first taste of notoriety came courtesy of an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries, and since then they’d made the rounds of every niche cable show and prime-time paranormal investigative special on the tube.

“Did you ever read They Speak from Beyond? That thing scared the pants off of me.”

“I missed that one,” I halfway lied. I had picked it up from a display in a bookstore and made it through a couple of chapters before putting it down. I didn’t like the feel of it; the authors were trying so hard to sell the audience on the phenomenon that I wondered if they believed anything they were saying.

People who already believe simply know, and they don’t feel compelled to proselytize. People who know tell their stories like Edna-Anne Macomber, with a simple certainty that doesn’t much mind if it’s mocked.

“But why would they come here?” I asked. “Famous ghost hunters with a Civil War fetish usually go to higher-publicity fields like Gettysburg or Manassas. We don’t have ghost stories at Chickamauga, remember? And Old Green Eyes, whatever he may be, isn’t usually good enough fodder for big shots like the Marshalls.”

“Finish the article.” He grinned like a maniac. “Something new is going on down there.”

“Karl, nothing new has happened down there in a hundred years.” But even as I argued, I scanned for the place where I’d left off. “Well, all right. I stand corrected. ‘Since the Memorial Day incident last week, a dozen new sightings of pointing ghosts have been reported. Though descriptions vary, the encounters are all similar. Witnesses say that the ghosts either appear in front of them or approach them, and then point at a distant location before disappearing.’”

He barely let me finish. “You know what I heard? I heard that a couple of the park rangers were so freaked out they quit their jobs.”

“Did you hear this from the same source that told you the Marshalls were coming?” I asked, reading the dull concluding paragraph to myself and handing the paper back to him.

“No, I heard it elsewhere. My doctor’s son had an internship out there, and he dropped it yesterday because he was too scared to keep going to work. And one of the guys who works here”—he jerked his head towards the barista counter—“his sister is married to one of the guys who keeps the grounds. I’m telling you, strange things are going on out there. You’ll see—they won’t be able to keep it page-three quiet for long, not at this rate. Before long, everyone’s going to know about it and they’re going to have to do something.”

I tried not to laugh, in case he would have taken it the wrong way. “And what precisely would you recommend that ‘they’ do, anyway? These guys are dead. There’s not a whole lot to threaten them with if they don’t want to leave.”

“I’m not saying they should be threatened, my dear. But it sure would be nice if there was someone hanging around who could just walk up and ask them what they wanted. That’s all I mean.”

“That’s what Tripp and Dana are for. Let the celebrities handle this one. I only talk to my own dearly departed kin, if I can help it.” I felt a damp tickle down near my ankle, and I nearly kicked with surprise. Cowboy was sniffing at my pants leg. I reached down and scratched at his head.

“Woman, haven’t you got a curious bone in your body?”

“I’ve got a couple hundred of them,” I assured him. “With change to spare.”

“Then why not go on out there? Just take a look around and see what there is to see? You never know—you might be able to help those poor folks who can’t seem to rest.”

I could have handed him one reason for each guilty, curious bone, but I only offered him the most pressing one. “That guy who was leaving when you came in a few minutes ago. Did you see him?”

“Yeah, I did.” He said it with the exact same inflections as the speaker in the old Ray Stevens song about the streaker.

“Didn’t look happy, did he?”

“No ma’am, he didn’t.”

“Do you know how he found me?”

Karl shook his head.

“Neither do I. But he’s the second one this month, and I’ve got to tell you, Karl, I really, really hate it when they find me. There’s nothing I can do for them, and feeling sorry for them only makes them mad.”

I found myself flailing for something to fidget with, and spotting my coffee stirrer, I picked it up. I twisted it around my index finger. “I don’t want any more weird presents of baby teeth, or friendship bracelets, or tiny lockets with a first snipping of hair. It’s awful—and it’s not getting any less awful as they keep on coming.”

“That’s probably a good thing.”

“From a moral perspective, sure. But from a personal standpoint, it sucks—and I want it to stop. Or, at the very least, I’d like to keep it at a slow trickle. You don’t…” I paused to reconsider my phrasing. “You should see their faces. There’s this split second when they figure out all at once that I’m not going to tell them what they want to hear.”

I swallowed, and stuffed the coffee stirrer into my mouth, pinching it between my teeth. “And you realize, don’t you, that if I were to get mixed up with these high-profile spook hunters, it would only get worse.”

“I get it. A whole lot worse, maybe.”

“Maybe.” We both sat quietly for a minute, him fussing with the paper’s corner and me nibbling the small brown straw down to a frayed, flattened bit of trash. “Sometimes I think maybe I ought to leave, and go someplace where people don’t know about me at all. It might be easier. Or better. I don’t know.”

He reached around the table and patted at my knee. “Aw, don’t say that. The brain-drain around here is bad enough; we don’t need all the beauty leaving the valley, too. But you know, you wouldn’t have to get involved with those two old crazies if you didn’t want to. You could still poke around a little, see what’s up for yourself.”

“Or for you?”

“Or for me, sure. You’re always welcome to go exploring for me. I’d love to sneak on out there myself, but these days…” He stopped and caught himself before the words went slow or sad. He laughed instead, slapping at the arm of his chair. “These days I’d need one hell of an extension cord, wouldn’t I?”

“A cord, or a jet pack strapped to the back of that thing. You could run down Old Green Eyes and ask him yourself what’s going on out there.”

He laughed harder then, and Cowboy’s tail thumped an optimistic beat against my shin. “A jet pack! And maybe a couple of pairs of roller skates for Cowboy so I could pull him along behind me—but then again, he’d probably just ride in my lap like a big baby. You should’ve seen him at the Riverbend fireworks this year. He spent the whole thing with his nose buried under my arm. Oh, hang on—I’ve run dry. Let me grab a refill.” He took his foam cup in one hand and gripped the wheelchair’s joystick with the other and swiveled himself away from me.

Despite the fact that Karl’s destination was less than six feet away, Cowboy took it upon himself to rise and dash after him.

While Karl busied himself at the counter, pumping on the air pots, I fiddled with the newspaper. He was right, and it was a damn good story.

I checked the last paragraph again and failed to see any mention of Tripp and Dana Marshall, so there was still hope that Karl’s sources had been incorrect on that final point. I didn’t have a solid reason to dislike the Marshalls so hard sight unseen, but that didn’t stop me. I hated the thought of them coming to Chattanooga, bringing their cameras and spotlights and publicity crews.

Interacting with ghosts was something to be done quietly, and in private if possible—or so I liked to think. As awkwardly as I sometimes handled my strange abilities, I tried to take them seriously; and it made me uncomfortable to watch others treat my poorly guarded secret like a well-paying parlor trick.

Then again, my reservations may have been as simple as an old-fashioned distrust of outsiders. But if rumor proved true and they were on their way, I would get my chance to see if my suspicion was warranted.

THREE

HOME SWEET

“Professional jealousy, that’s what it is,” Dave joked.

“I beg your pardon?”

My uncle turned up the volume on the television, that we might better hear the news. It was all over the local affiliates, which was funny for an investigation that was ostensibly hush-hush. A skinny blond anchorwoman repeated the Marshalls’ vow to “get to the bottom of things.”

“Disdain, perhaps—but never jealousy,” I corrected. “It’s revolting, the way they capitalize on things like this.”

“Revolting?” Lulu tapped me with her hip as she squeezed by, carrying a tray of nachos. She set the heaping snacks on the coffee table and went back towards the kitchen. “That’s a strong word for it. They’re some kind of scientists, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, and I’m Big Bird.”

Lu took a bite of a chip loaded with beans and jalapeños, chewed it, and swallowed without flinching. “I don’t know. You might be. I’m surprised at you, really. I’d think you might be warm to the idea of having someone else in town for the crazies to talk at. For that matter, it might do you good to have someone to talk at.”

“Speaking of being talked at, it happened again today.” I reached past her to pick up a handful of chips that seemed mostly devoid of hot peppers, and I took a nibble. I winced, even though only the barest trace of pepper juice hit my tongue.

I might have said more about it—I might have told them about Gary and the tooth—but Dave flashed me a look that made me think better of it. He rose and headed towards the kitchen, and I followed him.

He opened the refrigerator door and stood inside the patch of dim light and cold air. “Something else happened again today too,” he said quietly, and not happily.

“Dare I ask?”

“Do you have to?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. It was one of those moments where I didn’t know what I’d done to perturb him, and I didn’t want to start confessing to things until he gave me a hint. I cycled through a mental checklist of things he might scold me for, but I couldn’t come up with anything he may have caught me doing.

He looked over the fridge door, checking to make sure Lu was still in the living room. We could both see her feet, propped up on the coffee table beside the plate of chips. I watched Dave decide that the coast was as clear as it was going to get.

“Someone called for you,” he said. “It was some guy who claimed he was a friend of Harry’s.”

“Oh. What did he want?”

“To talk to you, I imagine. It’s the third time this month the same guy has called. Is there anything you feel like you ought to tell me, kid?” He leaned on the door, eyes still holding the partial scene in the living room.

“No,” I said in perfect truthfulness. I most certainly did not want to tell him that I’d warned Malachi to quit calling my cell phone, and that it now appeared the bastard was obeying the letter of the command, if not the spirit.

“Eden, are you in some kind of trouble? Because if you are, you can tell me, and if you want, I’ll keep it quiet.”

“Dave, I appreciate the offer, but I am not in any trouble whatsoever—not to the best of my knowledge.” Again, I answered with pure honesty. “I’ll call down to St Augustine tomorrow and ask Harry what’s up. I’m sure it’s no big deal. If something was wrong I’m sure my mystery caller would have left a message.”

This too was true, though I also planned to give Harry full permission to beat Malachi senseless the next time he thought about phoning.

“What are you two doing in there?” Lu hollered.

“Where’s the sour cream?” I shouted back.

“We’re out. But there’s some salsa behind the milk. Grab that and some napkins—and come back in here. Let’s start this movie, already.”

I reached around Dave to seize the salsa and the opportunity to flee, before he could interrogate me further.

So far as anyone officially knew, my half-brother and cousin Malachi was dead—murdered by the crazy old man who had lived at the clapboard house in the swamp. Not much in the way of remains had survived the fire, but I’d insisted with great fervor and earnestness that he’d been there in the hopes that it would keep the cops from trying to locate him elsewhere. In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure why I went to such lengths to protect him, but that’s how family works sometimes. Even when they don’t deserve it, you cover their asses.

Maybe I should have told Lu and Dave what really happened down in Florida, but I hadn’t, and I couldn’t imagine a situation where I could bring it up. I didn’t want to have to defend myself to them—and I would certainly have to, if I came clean—until I had a better excuse than “It sounded like a good idea at the time.”

Malachi wasn’t exactly making it easy for me.

He’d called my cell phone every week until I finally switched it out for another model with a new number. The new number hadn’t stopped him though. I don’t know how he got it, but he did, and he called it like clockwork. About one time out of every four I’d answer, and we’d verbally hopscotch through an awkward, meaningless conversation that served no purpose other than to make us both uncomfortable.

He’d sometimes hinted that he wanted to come up here, but I kept telling him not to.

“Let things die down,” I’d tried to tell him. “Give it a year or two. Then we’ll meet up someplace in Georgia and do lunch, if that’s what you want.” But he always wanted more than lunch. He wanted a family.

I bet he was driving Harry nuts. But that’s what the old guy gets for taking Malachi down there to St Augustine. If Harry’d had any sense, he would have left my brother for the cops; instead, he let me talk him into taking Malachi to Florida and hiding him in the monastery there.

But that night I tried to put them both out of my head, because I had nachos in the living room, Lu and Dave on the sofa, and Young Frankenstein in the DVD player. Everything else could wait.

* * *

The next day, Lu and Dave drove down to Athens, Georgia, to catch a concert. I ordered them to make a romantic weekend of it, but they were way ahead of me: hotel reservations and a room service menu had already been secured. I was a little surprised by my relief at learning that they’d be gone for so long; or perhaps I was only glad to know that they were far enough away that I could make a phone call in peace.

The call itself began easily enough. I dialed Harry’s cell and wondered idly if his ringtone was set to any particular music.

“Harold here,” he answered, and I was glad. I’d half expected Malachi to pick up, just because I didn’t want to talk to him and the universe occasionally allies against me that way.

“And Eden here,” I responded. “How goes it down there, old man?”

He laughed a little and cleared his throat. “Oh, more of the same. But what brings you to the phone? Malachi says he can’t get you on the line to save his life these days.”

“I’m glad to hear he’s noticed.”

“Not taking the hint, huh? I thought you might be avoiding him. I told him to give you some breathing room, but he’s so damn eager to make friends, he won’t listen.”

“He’s started calling me at home, Harry. You’ve got to make him stop. When it’s just the phone I’ve got in my purse, I can ignore him till the cows come home; but if he keeps looking for me here, I’m going to have a whole lot of elaborate lying to do. As it is, Dave already suspects something.”

“What have you told him?”

“Nothing, except what we agreed on. I’ve got my fingers crossed that he thinks I’m hiding a boyfriend, but I’m probably wrong and he’s half an idea closer to the truth. I don’t think he ever bought the story as we laid it out, not one hundred percent. Even if he doesn’t think I’m lying, he might suspect that I don’t know the whole story. When I logged on to the Internet here the other day, there were some links in the history folder that suggested one of them had been looking to dig up news stories about last year. It might’ve been Lu, but my money’s on Dave.”

“Any particular reason?”

“No, just a hunch. I think Lu already knows more than she lets on, but she’s happy with whatever fiction makes the most sense. Everything’s back to abnormal, and she doesn’t care. Dave’s curious, though. I think he feels left out of the loop.” Funny. I hadn’t realized that part until I said it out loud.

“Makes sense,” Harry agreed. “Why don’t you fill him in a little? Throw him a bone?”

“Which bone exactly would you have me throw him? The one about how my homicidal half-brother isn’t really dead—or the one about me hacking up my undead grandfather in self-defense? Hell, maybe we should clue him in on all that hocus-pocus at the shack. That’d make a great dinner conversation, don’t you think?”

“Eden…”

“I could explain how since that night I can see dead people so well I sometimes can’t tell them apart from the living, and, oh yes, by the way, did you notice I haven’t been sick since then? Haven’t had so much as a bruise or a paper cut? How am I supposed to explain all this to him when I’m not sure what happened myself?”

“Oh settle down. You don’t have to tell him much, maybe just talk to him about it some—even if you’ve got to be vague. He almost lost his two favorite women, and he doesn’t know why or how. I can hardly blame the man for being curious.”

“I guess.” I shifted the phone to my other shoulder and sat down on the arm of the couch.

“It’s sweet, though. The way you want to protect him, when he thinks he’s protecting you.”

“I’m a real sweet girl, or so they tell me.”

“Who?”

“Okay, nobody really. You might actually be the first.”

He grunted with amusement. “That, I believe. Hey, since I’ve got you on the phone, I don’t suppose you’ve heard about that nonsense at the battlefield, have you?”

I groaned. “I live on top of a rock, Harry—not under one. How did you hear about it? Surely it hasn’t made anything past the local news?”

“I couldn’t say. I didn’t hear about it on the news; I heard about it via the Marshalls. They’re up there right now, aren’t they?”

“If they aren’t, they will be soon. And that’s just what the battlefield needs—more ghost hunters. Damn Yankees ought to stay home and chase their own ghosts.”

“Those damn Yankees are from one of the Carolinas, I believe.”

I shook my head, as if he could hear it rattle. “And what, pray tell, is your interest in the Marshalls?”

“Purely professional, I assure you. They did some fascinating research into a case in England a few years back. Friends of a friend. You know how it is. They’re not so bad, once you get to know them. Dana’s a tad abrasive, but you’d really like Tripp if you gave him a chance.”

“I’ll take your word for it. They were on the news here last night, throwing slogans around. If I hear how they’re going to ‘get to the bottom of things’ one more time, I’m going to start screaming. They’re not going to get to the bottom of squat.”

“So why don’t you, then?”

I’d walked right into that one, but I was prepared to walk right out of it, too. “Because I’m not interested in getting to the bottom of it. There’s probably nothing to get to the bottom of. It’s a battlefield, Harry. People died there. It’s haunted. End of dull and uncomplicated story.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” he accused.

“No, I’m an excellent liar. You’re hearing what you want to hear. I’m done with ghosts. I’m tired of them. I see them plenty enough as it is; I’m not about to go looking for more. They’re like those crazy homeless people who hang out downtown—if you give them five seconds of attention once, they never leave you alone.”

“I doubt that’s a fair comparison.”

“It might be. What do you know, anyway?”

“Quite a lot that might surprise you,” he said. A very vacant pause followed, and I couldn’t tell if he was being dramatic or if he’d stopped to think.

The silence bothered me, so I filled it in. “I’m going to let the Marshalls take care of the battlefield. It’s not my problem. Hell, it’s probably not anybody’s problem. Some people saw some ghosts. Who cares?”

“The ghosts care, apparently. They seem to be going out of their way to try and communicate, but their success has been limited so far. It might be something important. In fact, I have to think that it must be—if the reports are right, and the sightings are so consistent.

“Really, dear,” he went on, “you’re in such a unique position to assist them. It’s a shame you don’t want to help.”

“I bet the Marshalls don’t want any help.”