“Did your father ever find you?”
Jackie shook her head. “No. I don’t know if he even tried. I imagine he was happy to be rid of me.”
“But you were still his daughter, despite everything,” Rachel argued, brows creased. “He must have loved you still.”
“I think in the beginning he thought of me as his daughter, but after all the years of trying to beat the demon out of me, I could see the love fade from his eyes. When he looked at me he only saw evil. It came to the point that instead of trying to save me, he was just trying to protect himself from me.”
“Do you think he’s still up there in Michigan?” Rachel asked. Her eyes widened as a second thought hit her. “And when he dies, will you see his spirit? Then he’ll know you were telling the truth all along.”
Jackie laughed. “Not every spirit lingers, darling. Only those with a purpose to fulfill, or with a stain on their soul that holds them back. He may simply move on to his intended place.”
Rachel looked uneasy. “Wait, do you think there’s a stain on my soul and that’s why I haven’t moved on?”
“No.” Jackie turned to face her, sincerity in her eyes. “I can tell you are not stained, Rachel. You have a purpose left to fulfill.”
“To say goodbye to my parents?” Rachel wondered, sadness passing over her face.
Jackie nodded. “Most likely.”
“Okay.” Rachel took a deep breath, somewhat relieved. “We’re almost there, just a few more miles.”
Jackie’s eyes passed to the dashboard clock and saw it was nearly three a.m. Rachel’s parents were likely asleep, still grieving over the loss of their daughter. Hopefully, soon they would see Rachel in a dream or hear her voice and take comfort that she was okay.
“So, what happened after Louisville?”
Jackie smiled. “I saved up again and continued south until I reached the Gulf. I stayed in New Orleans for just over a year, waiting tables, making friends. I guess I really found myself there.
“I was eighteen when I met The Gypsies. That’s what they called themselves, anyway.” She laughed and her heart filled with a warm, quiet ache. “There were three of them, teens like myself that came from bad homes and were in search of freedom. They’d wafted into town in this tired old Volkswagen bus and I ran into them one day on Bourbon Street. Dominic was strumming his guitar and Hannah played her sax, while Bobby had this lovely old bass guitar that he’d inherited from his grandfather. As I was walking past them on the street, something stopped me. It drew me to them, like a moth to a flame. So, I sat down and just listened, and Dominic began to sing to me. He looked into my eyes and I knew I’d found a familiar soul. A week later, I joined them on the road.”
Rachel sighed wistfully. “Did you love him?”
Jackie blinked then let out a quick laugh. “Dominic? No. I’ve never been in love. Though I guess you could say what we shared was as close to love as anything I’ve ever known.”
“Did he love you?”
Jackie shot her a knowing look. “What I’ve learned is that romance is never the fairytale you want it to be, Rachel. In real life, it’s much more complicated, chaotic, and painful.”
Rachel’s brow furrowed. “So, then what did you mean by familiar soul, if not soul mate?”
“I meant I saw in him the same things in myself that I’d always thought were abnormal. He couldn’t see spirits the way I could, but he did occasionally see auras and he had the most poetic, troubled heart. Unfortunately, as the years went on, he fell into self-abusive habits to cope with the emotional pain he felt, and I had no choice but to distance myself from him.”
“You didn’t try to help him?”
Jackie sighed. “There was no helping him. His demons were buried so deep, embedded in his very bones. One time, he opened himself up to me spiritually and I witnessed the events that happened in his childhood that damaged him so greatly. He’d been abused by his uncle, not just once, but continuously over the course of seven years since the age of six.”
Rachel’s face fell. “That’s horrible.”
“It was,” Jackie agreed, extending her hand outside the open window to coast the air. “I didn’t stay with The Gypsies for very long, as fate took me down other paths. Every once in a while over the years I found my way back to them but never permanently. At some point they all split off, landing in different corners of the country. I heard Bobby died last year of an overdose in San Francisco, and Hannah is married with kids in Salt Lake City, living the white-picket-fence life.”
“And Dominic?”
“He wanders, as I do. Last I heard, he was in Massachusetts somewhere near Salem.”
“Have you ever been there?” Rachel asked, looking wistful again. “I always wanted to visit Salem.”
“I’ve been lucky enough to see most of the country and many other places. I dated a guy once who let me tag along while he backpacked through Europe. I’ve lived out of hostels and motels, and when I eventually had the chance to buy this Jeep, I lived out of it for a while.”
Sadness darkened Rachel’s eyes. “Doesn’t it get old? Don’t you ever want something, like, familiar to come home to every day?”
“This life is not for everyone, but for me, it’s perfect. I guess you could say I’m a wanderer with perpetually itchy feet, taken by the wind.”
Rachel sighed. “You lead a fascinating life. I wish I could have the same chance…”
Jackie looked at her kindly. “There are great things to come for you, darling. You are not finished just because your physical body has died.”
Rachel nodded, though she didn’t look convinced “I hope so.”
“I know so.” Jackie turned her attention back to the road as it swooped around another bend and came upon a lone house in the wilderness. Rachel pointed to a small dirt driveway noticeable only because of the bright blue mailbox beside it.
“That’s it. My house.” Rachel’s hands wrung together in her lap as Jackie pulled to the side of the road. They met eyes, and Rachel shivered. “What do I do?”
“You’ll know.” Jackie’s eyes brightened as she took in the worried looking teen beside her. “I hope I didn’t bore you with the story of my life. I don’t make a habit out of telling people about my past.”
“No, it helped. It really did.” Rachel let out a rush of breath, the moonlight glowing over her hair and ghostly pale skin. “You made me feel better. I felt so lost, so afraid, before.”
“Just remember that you are not alone.”
“Where will you go now?” Rachel asked.
Jackie shrugged. “The wind carried me to you. Now it will take me to someone else who needs my help.”
Rachel looked past Jackie to her parents’ house, a bittersweet feeling coming over her. “You know, this one time my parents took me on vacation to this cool coastal town in Massachusetts. I think you’d like it there.”
“What’s it called?”
Rachel’s eyes shifted back to hers. “Mad Rock Harbor. I don’t know what made me think of it, but for some reason I have a feeling you’re needed there.”
Jackie reached behind her to pet Gatsby, her lips curving in a smile. “Then that is where I shall go. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Dominic; maybe I’ll stop in on him.”
“See, it is fate.” Rachel beamed, pleased she had contributed in some small way to Jackie’s mission. She twirled a piece of her blonde hair around her finger, biting her lower lip. “Well, I guess this is goodbye.”
“No goodbye is ever permanent. We will meet again, if not in this world then the next.”
Rachel reached out to lay her hand over Jackie’s on the steering wheel. The ghostly chill sent tingles through Jackie’s skin. “Cool. See you.”
Their eyes held and when Jackie blinked, Rachel was gone. The tingling feeling remained, and she rubbed at her skin. She was pleased to help the girl find her purpose, though departing was always bittersweet. She would continue on her path, while Rachel would move on
to her intended place.
In the backseat, Gatsby yawned and let out a polite bark.
“I know, I know.” Jackie laughed and reached back to help him into the passenger seat. He hopped over and smiled up at her, tongue lolling out. “How does Mad Rock Harbor sound, my love?”
He barked again, stamping his front two feet excitedly.
“I agree.” Jackie pulled onto the road, tossing back her hair to let the wind rush through it as she picked up speed. “I feel like something special awaits us there.”
As Jackie headed northeast toward the rising sun, a doctor five hundred miles away was receiving a late-night phone call that would change her life forever.
And in Seattle, a ghost hunter awoke from a strange dream, the name of a woman he’d never met on his lips. Grace. He fell back asleep and forgot the dream, but fate had done its job. Soon he and his partner would hit the road on the hunt for the paranormal.
Four strangers were unknowingly en route to each other, bound for a tiny, seaboard town in Massachusetts.
To a house that had claimed the life of a sparrow.
“We are all wanderers on this earth. Our hearts are full of wonder, and our souls are deep with dreams.” –Gypsy Proverb
SO FELL THE SPARROW
ORIGIN
For death is no more than a turning of us
over from time to eternity.
—William Penn
PROLOGUE
October 1865
Mad Rock Harbor, Massachusetts
For Sally Lockwood, time moved slower than it had before. Clouds lingered, frozen in the sky. The indigo water of the harbor lay unnaturally calm. Dry leaves clung to the spindly branches of towering elms, the wind unwilling to shake them free. Sparrows no longer sang. Stray dogs refused to bark.
It was as if the world itself had come to a standstill, though her young mind could not comprehend why.
How could she understand? Her death had been too sudden.
Sally’s family home stood comfortably on its generous plot of land—its white colonial columns and blue siding set against the backdrop of a quaint and quiet Eastern Seaboard town. The house and the town were all she knew; all she had seen of the world.
In her short five years of life, she had been sheltered from many horrific things. A Civil War that pitted brother against brother. The brutal destruction of entire towns. The slaying of over half a million men in the name of equality. The assassination of a prolific president.
It was five years that would change the course of history, years she witnessed with the innocence of a child.
Safe within the confines of her home, she skipped down the upstairs hallway. A carefree smile brightened her porcelain face as her blonde curls danced. The lacy white dress she wore billowed at her knees, the movement fluid and graceful. She felt lighter and less clumsy, the skinned knee and bruised elbow from a previous fall now miraculously healed. The inexperience of youth kept her from wondering how or why.
The wooden floorboards creaked beneath her bare feet, the only sound to penetrate the silence. She paused for a moment in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom. Her smile faded when she saw it was empty. No bed, no armoire, no vanity with a dressing stool where her mother sat and powdered her nose. Concern rushed into her mind briefly, then flew away like a little, lost bird.
She wandered to the stairway, her hand tracing the banister of the second-floor balcony. It dropped off abruptly where the banister was broken, the wood sharp and splintered. She peered nervously over the edge and down to the first-floor entryway. A sick feeling washed over her. On instinct, she backed away and continued to the stairs. She wanted to find her mother and listen to her play the piano.
As if she could already hear the sweet music, Sally began to hum.
She made her way down the stairs, her feet thudding on the wood with each step. Hazy sunlight poured in through the windows and filled the entryway with light. Out of habit, she twirled to the right at the bottom of the stairs and headed for the room where her parents kept the piano.
Something stopped her dead in her tracks. Her gaze locked on a dark, spreading stain. It marred the wood floor underneath the second-floor balcony where the banister was broken. Coldness settled over her, along with a feeling of dread and discomfort she didn’t understand. In the blink of an eye, she saw a vision of her own body lying crumpled and lifeless over the stain. For a fleeting moment, she saw her death with clarity. As rapidly as it appeared, it vanished. The cold feeling escaped with it and she continued on as though nothing had happened.
The lack of furniture in the living room stopped her again, and her tiny brow creased with worry that she had been abandoned. What if her parents had left her there all alone? She heard the slamming of the front door and immediately followed the sound, calling out for her mother. Her cries fell on deaf ears, as the living rarely hear the pleas of the dead.
Shoving aside the lacy curtains of the parlor window, she watched her parents approach a horse drawn carriage. She beat her hands against the window pane, begging them not to leave her. Not to abandon her.
As her father secured a trunk to the back of the carriage, her mother took a final, long look at the house. Her eyes fell on the window and seemed to capture, for one last time, the image of her angelic daughter’s face.
Mrs. Lockwood shook her head and climbed into the carriage, tears spilling down her cheeks. The carriage pulled away, never to return to the house that had claimed the Lockwoods’ only child.
Sally crumpled to the floor, heartbroken, and spotted the leather case holding the tintype photograph her father had always carried of her. It sat forgotten on the lowest stair.
She pulled her knees up to her chin and began to cry. Though tears fell, they did not exist, for she was nothing more than a lost specter. A lonely spirit. A ghost. Fated to drift within the shadows and lose herself in the house. The Sparrow House.
It would be hers for all eternity.
ACT 1—SHADOWS
Dying is a wild night and a new road.
—Emily Dickinson
He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world's slow stain
He is secure…
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
CHAPTER ONE
October 2012
Upstate New York
Grace was a woman who knew death. She had witnessed it, tried desperately to prevent it, and comforted those about to succumb to it. But even with all that, death was a thing she had never truly understood.
Until now.
They say the death of a parent is one of life’s inevitable tragedies. It was often something she said to others as they accepted the news of their own parent’s passing. Now she realized how worthless that rationalization really was. It didn’t lessen the blow or soothe the pain. It didn’t provide justification. It was nothing more than useless words used by people who didn't truly understand.
She didn’t want to hate them for trying to comfort her, but part of her did. Because she hadn’t lost just one parent—she’d lost both. No words could justify or make sense of such waste. It was simply a tragedy; one she still had trouble coming to terms with. Trouble accepting.
So, instead of facing it, she was running away.
She rolled down the window of her black Mercedes as she tore through the backwoods of New York, craving fresh air. It whipped in and prickled her skin with an icy chill, sending her shoulder length waves of russet hair flying around her face. On the radio, Jim Croce was telling an operator about his broken heart.
For a moment, Grace let her eyes close. She wanted nothing more than to absorb everything surrounding her; to find relief in the wind, the lilting guitar, the lonely stretch of rain-dampened highway. She knew she must be somewhere near Albany by now, halfway to her destination.
Until she got there, she’d simply try and enjoy the drive. At least while driving she couldn’t give in to the pain and cry. She could be alone but not feel alone. Not with the other cars passing her on the road, few as they were. It troubled her that complete strangers provided more comfort than her own friends, colleagues, or fiancé had. Well, ex-fiancé now.
The bastard.
But none of that mattered. She escaped Chicago, leaving her job behind. The three-month leave of absence had been forced upon her by her superiors, men who had known and trusted her father. Men who grieved nearly as much as she did.
The medical community was a tight-knit one.
She was Dr. Grace Sullivan, only daughter of the esteemed Dr. Allen Sullivan and his beloved wife Marie. May God rest their souls, or however they said it.
Ever since the car accident, everyone around her had done nothing but talk about God, saying her parents were at peace now in Heaven. It was all nice, but it literally meant nothing to her.
She didn’t believe in God. It was pretty hard to when you were raised with science; educated on the importance of medicine and the human ability to survive the impossible. In her eyes, it wasn’t God who granted miracles. People made their own way in this world and created their own fate. Except for unfortunate accidents. Those were simply an unavoidable part of life.
Funny how that had never seemed so cold to her before.
She shook off the chill and rolled up the window, irritated. She had promised herself she wouldn’t think about it. It was too soon, even if three weeks had passed since the accident. Her parents were cozily buried in the earth, beside each other in death just as they had been in life.
Though her drive to Massachusetts would take her within a few hours of her parents’ final resting place, she didn’t have the heart to visit them. Instead, she was headed for some house her father had owned—one he’d never told her about. A house five hours from her parents’ main residence in Manhattan.
So Fell The Sparrow Page 2
