Still, Kirby didn’t tuck his invisible tail and run through walls for fun. Who else did he know? Jay, Ellie, Ellie’s parents. All safe. The goth neighbors used to love him—no surprise there—but they were a thousand miles away. Nothing she could do to help them. Kirby also cared about Ellie’s grandparents, cousins, uncles, and aunts. Did she have their numbers? She scrolled through her DM history and found a two-year-old conversation with Cousin Trevor. Although they used to be tight, Trevor’s life became hectic after he married a teacher named Lenore Moore, moved to the Rio Grande Valley, and had a baby. The baby, now seven months old, had been born premature, almost dying twice in the neonatal intensive care unit. Little Gregory was doing well now, though. Right?
“Ma’am, do you need anything?” the concessions clerk asked, and it took Ellie a moment to accept that, at seventeen, she was now old enough to be called “Ma’am” by strangers.
“No, thanks,” she said.
She needed the night to end without death. She needed to be overreacting. She needed Kirby’s fit to be a fluke. But were they needs, or were they wants?
Did Jay need to break a cartoon heart on the Herotonic Bridge? He acted like it. Risked his life for it. Maybe, sometimes, wants felt like needs. Because the alternative hurt too bad.
A few minutes later, the post-movie crowd filled the lobby. Ellie left her bike propped against a table and found her parents near the bathrooms.
“Ellie, what the heck are you doing here?” her father asked. Luckily, he sounded more concerned than angry.
“You biked here?” her mother asked. “In the dark? Do you realize how dangerous that is, Ellie? What if a car hit you?”
“Your phone was off!” she said. “Plus, I have warning lights, and Kirby came with me.” Ellie took a gulp of water from the drinking fountain. “Kirby freaked out. He was zipping through walls. The last time that happened, Grandpa … Hey, what’s wrong?”
Her parents were glued to their smartphone screens. “Six missed calls,” her mother said.
“Are most of them from your brother?” her father asked. “He called me, too.”
“Did he leave a message, Mom? Dad?”
“Shh, Ellie, I’m listening to voicemail.”
“What did Uncle want?” Ellie asked, and she felt goosebumps rising on her arms.
“I don’t know, but he sounds terrible,” her mother said. “I need to call him back.”
The family exited the theater and congregated around their minivan. The nearby mountains perspired; soupy mist flavored every breath Ellie swallowed. She eavesdropped on one side of a conversation that became more frightening with every word. “How bad is it?” was followed with “What did the doctor say?” and “Is there any chance he’ll wake up?” Then, Ellie’s mother started shaking so hard that she almost dropped her phone. That’s how she cried: no tears, but lots of shivering, like her sorrow was an earthquake, not a storm. By the time the call ended, they were alone, and Ellie was terrified.
“Trevor was in a serious car accident,” her mother explained. She bowed her head, already mourning. “He’s being treated at the Maria Northern Trauma Center. It … probably will not save his life.”
“Cousin Trevor?” Ellie asked, rhetorically, because who else could it be?
“Yes.”
“Mom,” Ellie said. She sounded shrill. Desperate. “If he dies, I can—”
“Ellie,” her mother cut her off. “No.”
“But I—”
“You must never!” Raising her voice now. “You must never. All humans … all of us …”
“… without exception,” her father continued, because he was capable of calm speech; practicing veterinary medicine had not hardened his heart, but it taught him how to restrain signs of pain, “human ghosts are terrible things.”
Ellie looked up to the sky. She saw an owl circling overhead.
TWO
IN HER DREAM that night, Ellie tried to cross the Herotonic railroad bridge, but it never seemed to end. The river was an ocean, the moon a yellow Owl eye. She called for Kirby. Instead, she summoned a blond, turtleneck-wearing cheerleader named Jay Ross. He blocked her path, smiling, like they were playing two-person Red Rover, Red Rover.
“C’mon, buddy,” Ellie said. “Step aside. I’m not joking.”
Jay pointed up. There, Ellie saw a single phrase painted on the highest horizontal beam: HIS LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.
When she looked back down, Jay had vanished, and a thick, train-shaped mist rolled up the bridge, engulfing her. It smelled like wet dirt and motor oil. An obscure figure stood in the murk. She recognized his silhouette. “Trevor?” Ellie asked. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m dying, Cuz,” he said. His voice gurgled like the river.
“No! That isn’t fair.”
“You’re telling me.” Trevor stepped closer, and details emerged. His face was swollen, broken, and bloody. Ellie turned away.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he said. “Can I ask you for a favor?”
“Yes. Anything. What do you need?”
“A man named Abe Allerton murdered me.” He pointed to his battered face. “Abe Allerton from Willowbee.”
“Murder? Why?”
“That’s what worries me, Cuz. I was trying to …” Trevor sank to his knees. “Getting weak. Ellie …”
“Trevor, fight it.” Ellie tried to run to him, to hug him, but the fog was thick as molasses. “Who is Abe? Did you know him?”
“Barely,” he said. “Met once before this happened. Parent-teacher conference. Two years ago. Listen.”
She leaned forward. His voice was soft and tremulous, like an echo.
“Don’t let Abe hurt my family,” Trevor said.
“I promise.”
“Thank you. Xastéyó.”
In a moment of clarity, Ellie could see Trevor smiling, his young face uninjured. It was a sad smile but not a bitter one. Regretful, perhaps.
Before the dream ended, he was gone.
THREE
ELLIE AWOKE WELL before the alarm clock beeped. “I dreamed about the dead,” she said. “What now?”
Kirby hopped off the bed. He’d been curled at her feet all night, entertained by who-knows-what. When ghosts fell asleep, they went back to the underworld, so he clearly didn’t dream. Maybe Kirby contemplated squirrels and cheese for seven hours.
“Well, little guy?” she asked. “Is that what you did?”
His wagging poltergeist tail thumped against her desk: thunk, thunk, thump. Ellie concentrated on Kirby’s shimmer, and his shape emerged, like an image popping from a hidden picture stereogram. Expressive, feathered tail. English springer spaniel face: black, with a wide white streak down from brow to nose. Soulful brown eyes.
“Let’s see if anyone’s awake.” Ellie slipped into a white T-shirt and denim overalls. They had threadbare patches over the knees. She enjoyed rollerblading as much as biking, and before Ellie wised up and purchased shin guards, the activity tore holes in all her jeans, leggings, and overalls. Her knees were still webbed by scars and dark patches. Ellie’s skin was prone to hyperpigmentation; every scrape, scratch, and blemish left a deep brown impression for months.
As Ellie washed her face in the second-floor bathroom, her mind wandered to a frightening place. Most dreams were REM-stage fiction. Silly, scary, mundane, meaningless. Her conversation with Trevor felt different.
In fact, it reminded her of a story. One that chilled Ellie to the core.
As a young woman, Six-Great visited the southern Kunétai—the Rio Grande River—to investigate a series of disappearances. People were vanishing near its fertile estuary. At first, the locals blamed their misfortune on random mishaps. All manner of beasts and monsters lived in the Kunétai, but few were deadlier than the water itself, which could smother a powerful swimmer and fling the lifeless body into the sea. However, after eleven adults, four children, and a pack horse disappeared in one season, it seemed obvious that someone or something
was intentionally causing harm.
When news of the mystery reached her, Six-Great was three hundred miles from the estuary. She traveled the distance by foot. Horses, skittish things, did not enjoy the company of ghosts, and her dogs could tote her supplies by sled. Even with their help, Six-Great was exhausted when she reached the river. Still a day away from the nearest Lipan band, she made camp near the riverbank and commanded her dogs to stay alert as she slept.
That night, she had a troubling dream. In it, a teen boy crawled from a black pool of water and said, “Are you the woman who kills monsters?”
“I am,” she said.
The boy groaned. “I have the worst luck, Auntie,” he said. “It just drowned me! Eugh! Not two minutes ago!”
“What?” she asked. “A gator?”
“Worse,” he said. “It had the head of a man and the body of a fish. Be careful, Auntie. During the attack, something stung me in the water.”
“Like a barb?” she asked. “Or the stingers of a jellyfish?”
“One of those. It made my limbs go numb. There’s no time to rest. Hurry. You need to find the creature before it kills again.”
Six-Great awoke in a state of panic. A person’s last breath carried them to the underworld. Perhaps, with that breath, they could speak a last message. Whisper it into the ear of a receptive dreamer.
When Six-Great reached her destination, Lipan band was in a state of panic. Another person had gone missing.
A teenage boy.
There was no time for reverie. Ellie grabbed her mother’s waterproof eyeliner pencil and used its freshly sharpened tip to scrawl “Abe Allerton from Willowbee” across her arm. Just in case.
Don’t let Abe hurt my family.
On the makeup counter, her phone beeped, a text alert. She opened the messaging program and read:
JAY (9:31 A.M.) – Are you OK?
The message and its impeccable timing unnerved her. Was Jay prescient? He had a psychic auntie, but that didn’t mean anything. The gift wasn’t hereditary. It couldn’t be passed on like blue eyes or large feet.
Her phone beeped again.
JAY (9:33 A.M.) – Did you make it home?
It took a moment for Ellie to remember that she forgot to send an “I’m still alive” update at the movie theater. Of course Jay was worried.
She responded:
EL (9:34 A.M.) – I’m home.
EL (9:34 A.M.) – Not OK.
JAY (9:34 A.M.) – ???
JAY (9:35 A.M.) – What’s wrong?
JAY (9:35 A.M.) – Are your parents safe?
EL (9:35 A.M.) – Yes
EL (9:36 A.M.) – but
EL (9:36 A.M.) – I don’t know.
EL (9:36 A.M.) – Gotta go.
EL: (9:36 A.M.) – Let’s talk later.
JAY (9:37 A.M.) – Sure:)
JAY (9:37 A.M.) – Want a sundae?
That was his way of inviting her to meet at the mall, the only place in town with fresh ice cream. He wouldn’t eat it from a cardboard box. Said it tasted like paper. Frankly, Ellie couldn’t tell the difference.
EL (9:36 A.M.) – See you at 12.
After her sign-off, Ellie wrestled with knots in her hair. It was mid-back long, unlayered, and the kind of dark brown that looked black indoors. Ellie usually wore her hair loose, but today she wrapped it in a tight bun on the back of her head. She looked at her reflection, studied her face. The way it seemed fuller and more mature without hair cascading beside her cheeks and neck. Ellie hoped that she could get used to the new look. Hair should be cut to signify change or mourning—that was the Lipan way—and she felt both bearing down on her.
Ellie reached for a pair of scissors in the toiletry drawer, but she hesitated. No. Not yet. Maybe Trevor survived.
The stairs creaked as she descended to the ground floor. Although her family house was two stories high (sans the attic), it was narrow, as if squeezed. Thrift store paintings and framed photographs cluttered the limited wall space. Ellie paused at the staircase landing, her grip tightening on the wooden handrail. One of the hanging frames was blank. Her father must have removed the picture last night.
Ellie’s elders often cautioned: when somebody dies young, it was dangerous to speak his name, see his face, or risk calling him back another way.
She touched the empty space where Trevor’s smiling face used to be. The absence made her house feel subtly unwelcoming. It might as well be a stranger’s home. Maybe, she’d woken up in an alternate universe, one so similar to hers it could only be distinguished by the people it lacked. “Goodbye,” Ellie said. “Until …” She left the phrase unfinished. Until we meet again. Ellie didn’t want to schedule that reunion too soon.
She trusted the wisdom of her parents and elders. Ellie had heard the dark and violent stories about human ghosts. They were rare and fleeting things that almost always left violence in their wake.
The thing was, she had never been able to understand why they were so terrible. Trevor loved his family and friends; how could death change that? How could anything from Trevor be cruel? It was inconceivable, and yet …
She withdrew her hand from the picture frame. Sometimes, the world was too mysterious for her liking; Ellie intended to change that someday.
In the kitchen, her father nursed a mug of coffee. “You’re awake before noon?” he asked. “Did summer end while I was sleeping?” He smiled with his mouth, but his brown eyes seemed sad.
“Feels like it,” Ellie said. “Where’s Mom?”
“She took a dawn flight to McAllen.”
“Is that because …” Ellie trailed off. Every word about the tragedy felt like a psychic paper cut, and too many stings would make her cry. There was nothing shameful about tears, but Ellie hated the way her face ached when she wept. The pain felt like a head cold. “When did it happen?”
“Last night,” her father said. “Around two-thirty. He peacefully walked to the underworld. No struggle, no pain.”
“No pain? You can’t know that, Dad.” Although Ellie spoke softly, he heard her. Must have. He no longer pretended to smile.
“Lenore needs help with Baby Gregory. That’s why your mother left suddenly.” He put his coffee on the counter and hugged Ellie. His wool vest tickled her chin. Ellie’s father had to wear blue scrubs and a physician’s lab coat at work, but during off-days, he broke out the cable-knit sweaters, tweed pants, and scratchy wool vests. “She has other duties. Your aunt and uncle are crushed with grief. They can’t handle the burial preparations alone.”
Oddly, thinking about Trevor’s widow, infant son, and parents helped Ellie push through. She had a job to do: protect them from Abe Allerton. “Are the police investigating the crash?” she asked.
“I believe so.”
“Let me make it easier. Abe Allerton killed him. Abe Allerton from a town called Willowbee.”
Her father stepped back, perturbed. “Why do you believe that?”
“Cuz spoke to me in a dream. Told me who killed him. Same way that drowned boy told Six-Great-Grandmother about the river monster.”
“I see.” Judging by his furrowed brow, that was an exaggeration, at best. “Wait. What river monster are you referring to? Didn’t she fight a few?”
“The one with a human face and poison scales. That’s not important. Dad, I think Cuz reached out to me in between phases, after his last exhale but before his spirit went Below.”
“It’s possible. You and Six-Great are so much alike.”
“You think so?” she asked.
“Sure. I never met the woman, obviously, but you’re both remarkable ghost trainers. Intelligent and brave, too.”
Ellie smiled faintly. “Thanks,” she said, taking a glass from the cupboard and pouring herself some orange juice. She had no appetite for solid breakfast. “You know what this all means, though, right? Abe Allerton from Willowbee is a murderer, and he cannot hurt anybody else.”
“Hm.”
“Should I doubt myself? Can
we really take that risk? Six-Great trusted her dream, and the decision probably saved lives.”
“No. But …” Her father took a long sip of coffee. “As you slept, did Tre—I mean, did your cousin describe the murder?”
She shook her head. “We had so little time. Dad, he looked terrible. Bleeding and broken. It must have been torture. Can we call somebody? What about a sheriff?”
“Give the police a few days,” her father said. “Let them investigate.”
“Will they, though?” She thumped her glass on the counter. Pulpy juice spilled over its rim and pooled between tiles. “Everyone thinks it was a car crash, right? Even Lenore!”
“Ah. Well. That doesn’t surprise me.” Her father adopted a dry tone, the kind he used to talk about clinical details from work. “Your cousin’s injuries are consistent with trauma from a high-speed collision.”
“He was driving fast? Where did it happen? A highway? Weren’t there any witnesses?”
“No. A farmer found him along a wooded road. It was isolated. Not your cousin’s usual route home. But he was alone in his damaged car.”
“That’s a big red flag. Tell the police he’d never speed like that without a good reason. Obviously Abe Allerton was chasing him.” Yet that wasn’t the obvious answer at all. In Ellie’s dream, Trevor never mentioned a high-speed pursuit. He said Abe had murdered him. That required intent. What was the motive?
“Right now,” Ellie’s father said, “everybody is still wondering what happened, not who did it.”
“The what and who are linked! So, let’s use the who to find the what!”
“You aren’t wrong.” Ellie’s father moved to the dining nook, a table and three wicker chairs. He unfolded a paper map of Texas and spread it over the crumb-freckled hardwood tabletop. The map resembled a wrinkled tablecloth interwoven by roads, rivers, and county lines.
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