Not Quite Free

by Lyla Payne

  Besides, there’s a feeling deep in my gut that she’s not coming back. Maybe the Carlotta journals have given me a twisted view of my family, but the chances of Gillian Harvey ever being heard from again feel pretty small. Maybe she’d even like the idea of another Fournier having her things.

  Probably not.

  I glance in the rearview mirror again as we pull into Heron Creek. The faint smell of decay is wafting beneath my nose, so I’m ready to see Lavinia’s ghost back there. There’s nothing besides my loot—still, I can’t shake the feeling that the scent is a warning.

  A promise, perhaps, that even if she let me go tonight, there’s no way she’s done with me for good.

  Chapter Twelve

  The house is dark and quiet when I get home, taking the time to check, then re-check, all of the locks before wandering into the kitchen for a glass of water. Exhaustion tugs at my limbs and my eyelids but there’s too much adrenaline still lingering in my veins to think about sleeping—and it spikes at the sight of a note on top of some mail on the kitchen table.

  Grace –

  More real mail for you, and I did some of your laundry. It’s on your bed. Love you, can’t wait to hear first thing in the morning what you and Daria found out tonight. xo

  My heart pounds at the thought that it’s another letter from Beau. I barely managed to survive the first one without running to D.C. to fling myself into his arms, and that half-finished email is still sitting in my drafts folder.

  I shift Amelia’s note with stiff fingers to peek at the envelopes beneath, then dig through a few bills—my cell phone and one for the cable—before unearthing one plain, white envelope with my name printed in stilted handwriting. There’s no return address, but the postage says it’s international. From France.

  My gut says it’s from one of the Fourniers, maybe someone Travis hasn’t been able to track down, or someone who lives too far away to be an easy contact.

  Instead of sucking it up and being brave, I take it with me upstairs and turn on the water in the tub as hot as I can stand it—a bath is, in general, the best place to face any problem.

  I strip off my clothes, make sure my phone, the letter, and a fluffy towel are nearby, then settle into the steaming water. It takes a few minutes for my skin to acclimate, but less time than that for sweat to break out on my forehead. It feels good to be warm after being cold all the way to my bones since I fell in the river.

  And to pretend, for those few minutes, that everything is fine.

  Then I sit up, lean over the side of the tub, and dry off my hands on the towel. This time, my hands are steady as I slit open the envelope and extract two pieces of paper—one a sheet of lined notebook paper with looping, feminine writing on both the front and back, the ink a whimsical purple.

  The other item is on cardstock and is ripped along the top edge, as though perhaps it was a piece of a thank you card at some point. There are only three sentences and a signature on the card, all printed in bold, black ink and handwriting that’s becoming all too familiar.

  My heart stops beating at the sight of Frank’s name at the bottom. Nothing else about the message encourages it to start up again, either.

  Don’t trust anyone with your secrets, or with your life. The people who should protect you will not. There are no sheep, only wolves, my daughter—and you must prove you are one of them in order to survive.

  That’s all of it, excepting his name printed at the bottom. It’s a warning, much like the one the FBI found in his pocket when he died. Like that note, this one isn’t addressed to me. There’s nothing to make me think it was intended for my eyes…except for two facts: it’s inside another envelope that is addressed to me and he does say my daughter.

  I assume I’m the only one. That could be wrong. Up until recently I didn’t know about Travis either. Maybe there are more of us.

  Desperate for more information now, I set down the card from Frank—allegedly—and pick up the other letter. This one does have my name at the top, and I sink down into the water, letting it rise all the way to my chin as I start to read.

  Miss Graciela Harper (Fournier),

  I am writing to you because I feel it is my duty, and also because I promised your father years ago that I would, when informed of his death, make sure that you were aware of the legacy of our family. I know that he had planned to get in touch with you after he learned of your existence but not whether he had the time or ability to convey to you the depth of the specialness that both blesses and plagues our family.

  You are, he said, one of the Fourniers born with the sight. You have the ability to see spirits that have passed on from this life, and the chance to help them complete the business of this earth so that they can move on. It is a gift, as I’ve said.

  As with many gifts, there are some who resent it. And as with most things that can be misunderstood, there are some who fear it.

  These people, full of resentment and fear, come from the other half of our own family. For years, they have nurtured hate in the cradle, stealing those who do not have the gift from families of those who do.

  I pause, realizing that I’m biting my lower lip hard enough to draw blood. This letter’s claims fit so perfectly with the journal entry written by the Carlotta who witnessed her uncle murder her mother, then awoke to find her baby brother had been kidnapped by the killer.

  They hide in the shadows. Pose as strangers in order to get close to those of us they do not know, to determine whether or not we have the gift they despise so much. And they’re dangerous, Graciela. They will not hesitate to kill you, and if they can get to you before you have children, so much the better.

  Because, you see, their goal is to wipe out the gene that makes our sight possible. They believe themselves crusaders, religious truth-bringers. Saviors, even. For people like them, the Devil is, and always has been, most evident in those of us who dare to be born different.

  Your father’s note speaks the truth, though it leads to an understandably lonely life. Our ancestors married and had families, but many innocents have suffered for their connection to us. Be careful. Be wise. Be vigilant.

  It is the only advice I can give you, even after all these years spent living with this knowledge, and the ability flowing through my veins.

  Your father felt guilty after learning of your existence, because none of us have been there for you. Please know that for every Fournier bent on ending your life, there is one who celebrates it—from the shadows, which is where we’re forced to live in order to survive.

  If you need me, you can find me. Follow the ghosts, for they can help us just as we help them.

  The letter is signed Carlotta Fournier. It takes me by surprise, though I’m not sure why it should—there appears to have been one in about every generation since this crazy ride started. It feels appropriate that the confirmation of what I’ve come to suspect is the truth has arrived from a woman bearing that name.

  Except there’s not one in the family tree Travis and I have—I’m sure of it. So what does that mean?

  All of the peace the bath provided seeps away, so I let the cooling water out of the bathtub and climb out, making sure both notes are protected from any errant drips. Once I’m dry, I set the clothes Amelia washed, dried, and folded on the chair under the window and then climb under the fluffy, clean covers of my bed.

  I’ll catch hell for not putting them away if she notices, but hopefully she won’t be in before morning. No reason to think she will be, unless something comes up with the baby.

  That whole train of thought makes me smile—Amelia has always been the mother of the two of us, and it makes me happier than I can express to see her so happily settled into her role. It’s something I couldn’t have envisioned when I first returned to Heron Creek.

  It gives me hope that there could be a happy ending in my future, too, that’s just far enough out of sight to seem impossible at the moment. That maybe, just maybe, all of the paranoid warnings still whispering
from that letter will come to nothing, after all.

  The slow Monday at the library gives me far too much time to think—about the letter from France, and the note from my father, among other things. Like just what happened to Gillian Harvey, and what impact her disappearance could have on me. It’s not helping my nerves to have been up so late last night; the prospect of a quiet night at home had been keeping me going all afternoon.

  I do get an email about Henry’s second article, one that contains the excellent news that they received my draft and will get me notes soon. The next time Henry shows up, I’m going to read the entire thing to him no matter what else I have going on at the time. He’s been waiting so long for the closure he desires, and even if I’ll miss him, it’s time for me to focus on what he needs.

  I’m so amped up, my mind in overdrive trying to figure a way out of the mess of my upcoming trial, that when my email dings a few minutes before closing time, I about jump out of my skin.

  The message is from Clara, and I click it open to read her note before leaving. The attachment can wait until I get home.

  Graciela—

  These entries keep getting more and more interesting. You’re not going to believe this, but the medallions this Carlotta describes searching for at the behest of the ghost of Joan of Arc are a legendary artifact that historians, religious zealots, and treasure hunters have all been tracking for over a hundred years. Probably longer. This possible connection to Joan is one that hasn’t been uncovered before now. It will be valuable information for my own mentor, Professor Ludwig—you remember him, surely—if we can verify it through another source. Fascinating.

  At any rate, I thought you would want to know because it means that there’s at least some credibility to the girl’s story. I’m not sure whether it proves she saw the ghost of Joan of Arc, but she definitely heard about the medallions from someone in Lyons, France, around this time.

  Though if she did see Joan’s ghost, she certainly wouldn’t be the first.

  Hope you’re having a good January and getting at least a little sleep with a new baby in the house. I’m hoping to have some time coming up when I can finish these for you quickly—I’m quite curious myself at this point!

  Clara

  I close my laptop, her news rolling around in my head like an overturned bag of marbles. The thoughts came from the same place, must be connected, but at the moment too many of them are hiding under furniture and behind appliances for me to put them together. Her observations are interesting, to be sure, but given her long fascination with the foundations of Catholicism, sound more up Clara’s alley than mine.

  The professor she mentioned, Dr. Ludwig, is one of the world’s foremost scholars on the early Church. He’d been her PhD supervisor. It doesn’t surprise me that they’ve stayed close, and it’s nice for her that this project she’s doing for me—for free—would end up helping with his or her research, too.

  Oddly coincidental, but nice.

  The email strays from my mind as I pack up my things and leave the library, tugging my jacket tighter around me as the cold wind slips spindly fingers around the snaps. My car is a few blocks away, near Westies, and I decide to stop in and grab a couple bowls of soup to take home for dinner—but only after checking to make sure Leo isn’t inside or out.

  Coward, one of my devils sneers.

  I imagine kicking him in the balls.

  My phone rings while I’m in line, and I answer it after checking the Caller ID. “Hey, Millie. Just grabbing some soup for dinner. You want anything else?”

  “No, but Brick’s going to be here. He’s not big on soup as a meal—men, right? But he loves their chili and baked potato combo.”

  “Okay.” It’s nice that he’s coming, because it means I’ll be free to read the translation Clara sent, but hopefully he’s not going to pressure me about giving up on the Frank thing.

  Not that I have any reason not to, currently, though I’m still hoping to find something in the things I took from the farmhouse. What? I haven’t the slightest clue. This is what’s known as grasping at straws, I’m pretty sure.

  “See you soon.”

  “Yep.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lyons, France, 1825

  My mother insists I write down my encounters with the spirits even though, in my opinion, they don’t like it. Especially not Joan.

  Well, not when it comes to her medallions, anyway. She’s happy enough to be remembered for other things, but her treasure…she’s quite keen on making sure it hasn’t fallen into the wrong hands, or something like that. At any rate, I like her very much and want her to like me in return, so these entries prove troublesome for my conscience, at best.

  We seem to have similar souls, she and I, and I can only hope to convince my own parents in time to let me make my own decisions about my life and my future.

  I know my mother thinks I’m unaware of Father’s illness, but the truth is more complicated than that. It’s almost as if my heart believes that if I refuse to acknowledge it, whatever force is intent on stealing him from me will cease to exist.

  It’s a silly thought. The thought of a girl, not a woman, and one that makes even less sense for a woman like me—one who knows that nothing and no one ever ceases to exist. Joan and the others have taught me that, and my baby brother recently confessed to me that he has his own strange and emerging gifts.

  I find myself frowning as I think of Philippe and the way his secret came to light. He’s only a boy, one who has been quiet his entire life. A watcher, a child who notices everything but is rarely noticed by those outside our family. I’m not sure why he begged me not to tell our mother about his ability to not only see the spirits who have passed on, but to…I suppose command them is the right word.

  I learned of his abilities, and the way that they differ from mine, by accident. That’s what he says, though I’m inclined to think that he was scared and wanted to tell someone. Philippe chose me, even if without realizing it, and his trust is the reason the secret remains exactly that.

  I was lazing in the fields the other day, avoiding the girls from town and hoping Joan might come by for a chat; I’ve missed her since we found the spot where her medallions had been and she seems satisfied that they are no longer her burden to bear. A spirit joined me, but one that felt strange. It was a man, one of the villagers who had recently passed in a fire in the rectory. When I asked what he wanted from me, what he needed in order to make his way into the next world, he only looked confused. Almost bereft, really. He paced and sat, looking at me mournfully but failing to give much direction at all.

  Almost as if he didn’t want or need anything, at least not from me, and was at a loss as to why he and I were staring at each other in the golden afternoon.

  Philippe seemed surprised when I relayed the occurrence to my mother at the dinner table. He was never too interested in our talk of spirits and ghosts before, but that night was different. He watched with big, blue eyes as I struggled to describe what felt different about the man. Mother frowned and told me that she’d never heard of a spirit coming around to our family who didn’t need or want help with some sort of task.

  It was later that night when Philippe confessed to me that he, too, had seen the man. That it had made him cry, and that he had told him to go away, to find his sister because she was the one who helped ghosts.

  A ghost has never done my bidding unless they desired it for their own purposes. So, it seems clear that my little brother not only has the gift, but that his is different than mine. I’ve told him what Mother has told me over the years—to chronicle his encounters with them, to give them his help and his heart without hesitation—and also encouraged him to talk with her so that she can help him through this time the way that she did with me.

  It’s not my place to tell her. If he wants to keep it to himself for now, that’s his decision. I just…wonder why his gift is so different from ours. What it means, and whether the man from the r
ectory must do what my brother says. Can he move on while Philippe is commanding him? It worries me to think that the ability that has brought such purpose and joy to my mother and me could have a dark side. The aimlessness of the man, the frustration about him, hurts my heart.

  I’ve resolved to help the ghost if he returns, or at least do my best. But I don’t know. I don’t know if my powers are any match for Philippe’s, for my brother’s ability appears, at least at first glance, to be much stronger. Or certainly more forceful.

  I don’t know, but it makes me feel…unsure, perhaps for the first time in my life. It might not do, keeping Mother in the dark. I’ll have to think about it.

  The journal entry ends there, sort of abruptly, and I realize my free hand is clenched around the edges of the computer, my knuckles white. The house is quiet, with Brick and Amelia downstairs and me alone in my room—I can almost hear it breathing in a soft, steady answer to my jagged inhales.

  Someone else, before Frank, had the ability to make the ghosts do what he wanted. Had Frank known?

  More importantly, did it mean there could be more people like them? That any ghost who shows up in my life might have been sent to spy on me the way my father had forced Henry to do? After all, Carlotta herself had said to ask the ghosts if I needed to find her. That our relationship with them could be a two-way street.