Ghost Wood Song

by Erica Waters

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “So sorry.” I rock her gently as she weeps into my hair, guilt and shame flooding me. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Finally, Sarah pulls back and looks at me, her face a mess of tears and anguish. Orlando hands her a tissue, and she wipes her face. “Didn’t mean to what?” she asks, hiccuping down her sobs. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “It was my—” I pause, not sure I’m ready to confess everything. “Was it awful to see her like that?” I ask instead, and Sarah’s eyes fill with fresh tears.

  “Not completely,” she whispers. “It was . . . a lot. A lot to process. I’m not sure what I feel.”

  “Jesus Christ. Tell us what the fuck is going on here, right now,” Rose says.

  Sarah glances between us, and understanding fills her eyes. She stares at me, shocked. “You—you . . .”

  “You brought that ghost here.” Rose’s voice is so matter-of-fact I wonder if her little banjo has a history like my fiddle’s.

  “Yeah, I did.” I look back at Sarah. “I’m so sorry.”

  Sarah leans away from me. “How?”

  I get up and pick my fiddle off the floor and show it to them. “It was my daddy’s. We thought it was lost or destroyed when he died. But, well, I found it, and it . . . it, um, brings the spirits of the dead to the person who plays it.”

  I expect the room to burst into angry noise, but everyone just stares at me.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Orlando says. He’s holding Sarah again, his hands tight around her arms.

  Rose turns on him. “Didn’t you see the fucking ghost?” Orlando flinches back from her, mumbling about carbon monoxide poisoning. He doesn’t want to accept what happened, doesn’t want to believe that all the stories his grandmother told him about wayward spirits and family curses might be true.

  “Where did the fiddle come from?” Cedar asks, his voice surprisingly calm now. “I mean, why did your dad have it?”

  “It’s been in the family a long time. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s old. Really, really old. Someone buried it, but then I found it.”

  “The other night. You came back all muddy,” Orlando says. “That’s when you—”

  I nod, but I don’t meet his eyes.

  “Can I look at it?” Cedar asks, and I hold the fiddle out to him, though the moment his fingers touch it, I feel a hunger to have it back. He takes it in his hands and studies it, turning it over. I cross my arms to keep from snatching it away. Cedar doesn’t handle the fiddle like it’s a ghostly object that was recently dug out of the ground. He holds it like any other instrument, a collection of wood and strings, and it hurts me to watch him turn it over so roughly. Kenneth peers over Cedar’s shoulder to see the fiddle, too, his expression a mingling of curiosity and fear. But Rose is looking at Sarah—strangely, almost longingly, like she wishes she were in Orlando’s place, holding Sarah close.

  Finally, after a long silence, Sarah speaks. “Why would you want to raise my mother’s ghost?”

  I push my hair out of my face and sink into the recliner, as far from Rose as I can get. She’s a tiny girl, but she’s radiating anger. I thought she was a jerk, but maybe she’s just protective, the way Jesse is of me.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I say. “She’s not the one I—”

  “How does it work?” Cedar asks.

  “Like I said, the fiddle attracts ghosts, and it can let them take solid forms, at least long enough for them to speak, to say their piece, whatever.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” Orlando asks, horrified. If Orlando’s brother was wrongly jailed, I know his response would never be something like this. He’d find a safe, logical solution that didn’t involve summoning ghosts.

  But there isn’t one. This fiddle is all I’ve got. I’m not sure any of them are capable of understanding my reasons, but I have to try to make them see. Words don’t seem like enough, but they’re all I’ve got.

  “For Jesse,” I say. “I need to talk to Jim—to find out what really happened. I’ve been trying on my own, but it’s not working. I just want to get Jesse out of jail.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Kenneth says. “You want to raise my daddy’s ghost?” His face is pale and shocked. I can’t bear to look at him.

  “Oh my God,” Sarah says, her grief turning to anger. “This was practice. You were using my mom as practice.”

  I jump out of my chair. “No, no, I swear. I didn’t mean to bring your mom here.”

  Everyone’s staring at me, and I don’t know how to explain myself. I’m not sure I even understand my own reasoning. “It’s just that the fiddle isn’t . . . I don’t really know how it works, but I thought playing with y’all would make me strong enough to play it, it would help me play well enough to make it do what I want. I haven’t been strong enough to do it myself. I’m sorry. I didn’t plan this. I just wanted . . .”

  “You wanted to use us like some kind of freaky ghost-raising amplifiers,” Rose says. “That’s all this is about.” She turns to Cedar. “She’s probably not even really into you.”

  Cedar’s eyes fill with hurt. “You’re just using us?”

  “No. I wanted this band before the fiddle—from the first time I heard you guys play at the open mic. But then, after I found the fiddle, I guess I thought having a band would help me get control of it. I thought playing with you guys would make me strong enough to raise Jim. And I have to—I have to help Jesse.”

  I turn back to Sarah. “I’m so, so sorry. I really didn’t think anything like this would happen. I don’t even understand why it happened.”

  She won’t meet my eyes.

  “You should go,” Rose says. She swipes my case and bow from the floor, and throws them into the recliner next to me. “Cedar, give her that fucking fiddle.”

  “Rose,” he says, his voice a warning, but he hands me the instrument. Having it back in my hands floods me with a moment of relief, but I turn my attention to Sarah.

  “Sarah,” I whisper, and she looks up at me, her eyes unreadable.

  “Just go,” she says. “Everybody, go home.” She turns and walks quietly down the hallway and into her bedroom and shuts the door, leaving us standing in the living room.

  “I’ll stay with her until her dad gets home,” Orlando says absently. I can almost see the struggle going on inside him, between his family’s beliefs and the science he loves to cling to.

  “I’m out of here.” Rose starts for the door, Kenneth trailing behind her, still lost and stunned by the thought of his father’s ghost. He shoots a furtive look at me over his shoulder but doesn’t say anything else. Guilt turns my stomach sour.

  Rose turns, with her hand on the doorknob. “Are you coming, Cedar?”

  Cedar looks at me uncertainly. “Are you okay to drive home?”

  When I nod, he follows Rose and Kenneth out. I watch from the doorway as they get into a pickup truck parked across the street and drive away.

  I look back at Orlando. “Take care of her.”

  “I will,” he says more gruffly than I’ve ever heard him speak. Is he thinking of the wasps? Does he think I did this on purpose? Does everyone think I did this on purpose?

  I leave Sarah’s house feeling like the worst person alive, my head aching and my heart matching it beat for beat.

  Sixteen

  When I get home, I park Mama’s car and head into the woods. Despite everything that just happened, I already want to play the fiddle again.

  This instrument has nearly drowned me, filled the trailer with wasps, and transported me to a dark and hideous hell dimension. It called up my best friend’s dead mom and almost hurt my little sister. Jesse and Aunt Ena were right to keep it from me—to keep it from the world. There’s a darkness at its core, something beyond its ability to draw out spirits.

  But my fear of it is still less than my wonder—I raised a ghost. With my fingers and the fiddle’s strange magic, I brought a ghost to life. I let her move and speak. I gave her a chance to
tell her daughter she loved her, even if it did hurt my friend. Exhilaration is slowly pushing my doubts and even my guilt aside.

  I understand now why Daddy was always picking up the fiddle again. Some things are worth the dangers—like Cedar said about rodeo, it doesn’t happen on a screen or to someone else. It’s real life, and that makes it worth the risk.

  These trees are full of spirits. How many stories do they have to tell? How many of them are longing to be seen, to be heard as more than a rustle of wind in the pines?

  I was born to play this fiddle, to make this ghost wood sing.

  My heart races as I push through the trees, deeper into the woods, as far from Mama’s trailer as I can get. That will keep Honey safe. The only person I can hurt out here is myself.

  I find a clearing where the moonlight is bright enough to let me see any ghosts I might raise. I sit on the blanket of pine needles and wait, listening.

  The ghosts are here, practically pressed against my skin, drawn to the fiddle’s power. They murmur and sway like dry leaves, their presence comforting, familiar. They aren’t evil; they aren’t trying to pull me down to hell. They’re just lonesome.

  I bring up my fiddle and begin to play an old Everly Brothers song, “Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail.” It’s about an elderly woman who wants to bail her son out of jail. She brings her watch and her chain, even her wedding ring, ready to offer anything for his release. The moment she embraces him, she dies. The song seems right somehow, a way to tap into the ghosts’ longing, into the ties that keep them bound to this world.

  In this moment, I wish Daddy’s ghost would come. I wish he would appear and tell me what to do, how to help Jesse. I wish he would hold me and tell me everything will be okay. But I’m also not ready to see him yet—I might only get one chance to raise his ghost, and I want to make sure I know how to keep him as long as possible. I want to be ready to say all the things in my heart.

  The fiddle warbles into the night air, making goose bumps erupt on my arms. I play the song all the way through, but nothing happens. No ghosts appear.

  When the notes fall silent, the forest sounds fill the night again. The ghosts are still here, closer even, more eager. But they remain quiet, invisible. The fiddle hasn’t touched them, hasn’t drawn them out.

  I play a few more songs, but the ghosts don’t speak or show themselves.

  Frustration wells in me, making me play wrong notes, making my bow screech. How could I raise Sarah’s mother’s ghost, but these ghosts, my ghosts, are unaffected? What am I doing wrong now? Why did it work before? Was it really because the band played with me? My heart starts to beat faster. If I can’t raise a single ghost in these woods, how will I raise Jim?

  Daddy told me all kinds of things about ghost raising, except the one thing I need to know now: exactly how to do it.

  I have to figure it out, if I’m going to find out what really happened to Jim. If I’m going to clear Jesse’s name.

  The only person who could help me won’t want to, but I have to try.

  Early the next morning, I’m standing on Aunt Ena’s porch, waiting nervously for her to answer my knock. She lets out a sigh the moment she opens the door, like she knows why I’m here and what I came to ask. “A gift,” I say, shoving a white bakery bag into her arms.

  “More like a bribe, I’ll wager,” she says, already pulling a doughnut hole from the bag. “Now what do you want?” she asks through a mouthful of pastry. “I know you didn’t bring me this out of pure sweetness.”

  “Let’s go inside,” I say, leading the way to the kitchen. Aunt Ena pours herself a cup of coffee before she sits across from me, her eyes wary.

  I could lie, but she’d see right through me. Besides, she deserves the truth.

  I take a deep breath. “I found it. I found Daddy’s fiddle.”

  Her face blanches. She opens her mouth to speak, but I interrupt her.

  “I know this isn’t what you want for me, and I know it’s dangerous. But I had to find it, Aunt Ena. I had to. And I’m going to use it.” I hold my hand up when she tries to say something. “For Jesse. That’s all. I have to do it for Jesse. You know you would have done the same for Daddy.”

  Aunt Ena crosses her arms, her mouth going tight. I could argue with her all day, but something in her eyes tells me I won’t have to. She must know as well as I do that this was inevitable.

  “What do you want to know?” she asks. Her voice is tired, defeated-sounding.

  Guilt and relief both flood me. “I want to know how Daddy did it. How he raised the ghosts.”

  “I don’t know, darlin’. I really don’t,” she says. “Your daddy never told me. He just did it. That’s all.”

  I squash down my frustration. “Okay, well, is there anything else you can tell me? Anything to help me raise Jim? You live in a house full of ghosts. I know there’s something you can say to point me in the right direction. I’ve been playing in the woods . . . practicing on our ghosts.”

  Aunt Ena sighs. “The ghosts here—some of them died in this house or in these woods. But most of them didn’t. Most of them are old, old ghosts, gone for a long time. Their families have died, or their old homes have been torn down. They’ve got nothing left to hold them to one place. So they chose to come here.”

  “What’s that got to do with Jim?”

  “He’s a new ghost, so he’s probably still hanging around where he was killed. You know they do that, for a while, until they get used to things. If you’re really going to try to raise him, maybe it should be at the construction site.”

  It’s sad to think about Jim haunting that empty, half-built house, lurking all alone at the scene of his murder. Maybe if I can raise his ghost, he’ll be glad for the chance to speak, to connect with someone alive, even if it’s just the stepdaughter who never liked him.

  But Jim as a ghost? I’ve been so focused on figuring out how to raise his ghost that I hadn’t really considered what it would be like to face him, to speak to him. Going over the specifics with Aunt Ena, saying it all out loud, makes it feel real in a way it hadn’t before. If I’m successful, I’m going to face down my stepdad’s ghost. The thought sends a shiver down my spine.

  Aunt Ena seems to sense my fear. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” she says, her voice pleading. “There’s all kinds of ways to take care of people, and this isn’t the only way you can do that for Jesse.”

  I hesitate, thinking over her words. But I shake my head. “He’s running out of time. Every day there’s more evidence against him. There’s nothing else for me to do. I have to try this.”

  Aunt Ena reaches across the table and grasps my hand in hers, warm and alive in a room full of ghosts. “Just don’t lose yourself, Shady—while you’re trying to save your brother, don’t lose yourself, too.”

  On Monday, Orlando catches my arm as I pass his table in the cafeteria. He’s sitting with his younger brother, Carlos, and their friends Juan and Shane from the Latin language club, a group known for their love of D&D and LARPing. “We need to talk,” Orlando says.

  “Thank God. I thought you were going to ignore me like Sarah,” I say in a low voice. It’s been three days since I raised her mother’s ghost, and Sarah hasn’t answered any of my texts or calls. I couldn’t bring myself to reach out to Orlando after the way he glared at me, and Cedar was tied up with rodeo stuff. It was a long, lonely weekend that mostly involved trying (and failing) to raise a ghost with Daddy’s fiddle. I know where to raise Jim’s ghost, thanks to Aunt Ena, but I haven’t been out there yet because I still don’t know how to do it. The dead aren’t talking to me either.

  Before Orlando can answer, Juan gets my attention. I haven’t seen him much since Jim’s funeral, and I’ve been meaning to thank him for coming.

  But he’s already talking before I can get a word in. “Shady, I heard you were dating Cedar Smith. So, uh, how do you feel about space cowboys? I cosplay a mean Malcolm Reynolds.” He gives me a huge wink and a flash of two
dimples, then shoots me with finger pistols.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I say with a laugh.

  “Sorry, but we gotta go,” Orlando says, gathering up his bag and empty tray. He ruffles Carlos’s hair and waves farewell to Shane and Juan. I smile at them and hurry after Orlando. Once we’re out of earshot, Orlando turns back to me. “You really can’t blame Sarah for being pissed. You lied to us.”

  “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you.”

  “That’s the same thing.” He shakes his head, but it’s not in his usual wondering way. It’s full of hurt and disbelief. “You didn’t trust us.”

  We push through the crowded room and out into a little courtyard lined with concrete benches. Orlando settles onto a bench. I turn to face him, sitting cross-legged, but he doesn’t look at me for a while. Instead, he stares back toward the cafeteria, chewing on his thumbnail.

  “Please just say what you want to say.” I can’t take his silence anymore.

  He turns toward me, annoyed that I’m rushing him. “You know I’ve never believed in ghosts. I thought all that stuff my abuela says about spirits was superstition. But I’ve been thinking about it for days, and there’s not a logical explanation for what happened.”

  “Duh.”

  “But I do know you’re being stupid. You’re doing something dangerous and selfish that’s going to hurt you and everybody else.”

  “I’m not doing this for me. It’s for Jesse.”

  Orlando stares at me. “Is it though? Would Jesse be really okay with everything you’ve done while trying to help him? Because those wasps could have hurt your sister, and who even knows what kind of lasting damage you’ve done to Sarah. And the way you passed out . . . If everything my abuela has told me is true, then you put all of us in danger the other night. You shouldn’t open doors you don’t know how to close.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. But I have to get Jesse out of jail. I can’t stand for him to be in there, Orlando.”