I don’t do awkward well, unless it’s Julian. And he’s a special case.
“Thank you,” Ezra said, cutting off his slow slide into awkward flailing. “We were just heading up to the main house. Have you eaten?”
Enoch shook his head. “I was out feeding the cows and just heading back.”
Ezra shot me a look. Yep, I could see it, Enoch seized the opportunity to come talk to us—to me—while his family thought he was better occupied with chores. I wouldn’t have been surprised, as egotistical as it sounded, to find out he had rushed through the feeding to make sure he had a few minutes to stop by and catch us before we were surrounded by the buffer of his family. “Well, we’ll follow you up to the house then,” I said brightly.
Enoch glanced at the ATV and for a horrible moment I thought he was going to offer to let me ride pillion. Instead, he nodded, and his smile came back full force. “Sure. Hey, um, before y’all leave… can I talk with you? I have some questions about what you do and—”
“Enoch James Carstairs!” Mrs. Carstairs’ voice carried in the still morning air, that distinct parental tone making even Ezra and I straighten guiltily, as if we had been the ones sneaking to bother guests.
“Shit,” Enoch sighed. “See y’all up there.” He waved at the figure standing on the side yard between the bunkhouse and the main house. “Coming, MeMaw!”
Ezra and I exchanged glances and started up the slope towards the house and the waiting Mr. Carstairs. “Fanboy or something else?” I asked quietly.
“Bit of both, I think. A dose of fanboy, a dash of teenage crush, a serving of desperate curiosity, and likely a touch of being a sensitive himself.” We were nearing the house and Ezra slowed his steps again. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m getting a definite not-great feeling. Not related to whatever happened last night,” he added hastily. “Something else.”
I nodded. “This place has a strange vibe to it, alright. I keep getting a feeling there’s someone trying to break through and talk or at least initiate contact, but it’s like a terrible connection. A laugh or two, the watched feeling.” I hesitated for a moment before adding, “Early this morning, a ghost woke me up.”
Ezra stopped mid-step and turned with an expression of excitement blooming on his features. “Oz! That’s great!”
“I mean, yeah, for sure but…” I shook my head. “It was weird. That smothered feeling hasn’t gone away, and the visit wasn’t like my usual experiences.”
“Maybe it’s just the type of ghost this one is. You’ve talked before about how there seem to be different sorts. We’re in a whole new country,” he grinned. “New types of ghosts, too. You know how Americans are—can’t drive on the proper side of the road, smother everything in ketchup, have weird ghosts.”
I snorted and we resumed walking. “I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but it didn’t feel like a ghost feels for me. Hell, I thought it was you whispering to me before my brain kicked into gear and I realized what was going on.” I trailed off. Another few steps and Carstairs would be able to overhear us. “This is a strange place, Ez. Something’s going on that feels wrong on several levels and I’m going to be try to charm it out of Carstairs over breakfast.”
Ezra nodded. “Unless Julian’s managed to already?”
Both of us were still laughing over that when we reached Mr. Carstairs.
Breakfast was a bit of a spread, though not as huge as the night before. Mr. Carstairs, Enoch, a woman they both called MeMaw but I found out was Mr. Carstairs’ mother, Yancy, and a grim looking man named Gerald—who was apparently the sole ranch hand still on the payroll—were moving around the kitchen in a complicated ballet of familiarity and speed, going between the counter and the table and back again, occasionally breaking off to swing by the fridge or stove. Julian was pressed into a corner, clutching a mug of coffee and doing his best to phase through the wall and into the other room which seemed to be empty. “Morning,” I murmured, scooting in close beside him. He didn’t flinch away, but he didn’t lean into me either. “Alright, darling?”
His quick glance up at the Carstairs family before he leaned slightly against my side told me an entire saga. “Ah,” I sighed. “Okay then.”
“Not okay,” he grumbled. “It’s stupid.”
“We’ve all got our hang ups,” I said. “What’s in your cup?”
“They said coffee, but I’m pretty sure it’s laced with rocket fuel.”
Ezra made a happy sound and headed for the silver kettle on the stove. “Ez,” I called, “are you sure—” The look he sent me quelled the rest of that question. Do not stand between him and his tea.
“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Julian assured me quietly. “Um, sorry I slipped out this morning.” He pressed against me a little more overtly. Not quite a hug, but in the same arena. “I wanted to see if there were footprints outside from last night.”
“And?” I watched Ezra pour himself a cup of tea and turn to answer a question from Yancy, something about England I didn’t quite catch all of. Gerald, with his dour expression and hunched shoulders, lurked like a particularly annoyed gargoyle at the end of the kitchen bar, glowering at everyone but especially me. When his dark gaze found me, a slick-oily shiver ran down my back and pooled at the base of my spine, a gross wave of queasy awareness shuddering through me.
Something was off about him, something I couldn’t name…
He wants what’s his popped into my thoughts, though it wasn’t a memory or even a ghost. It was sheer awareness. Gerald met my gaze and his scowl deepened, forcing me to look away.
“And there weren’t any,” Julian was saying. “Just ours from coming and going last night. I even checked to see if there was a way someone had smoothed them out to cover their tracks, but the ground and gravel were undisturbed. No signs of steps or smoothing.” He took a sip of his coffee and frowned bitterly. “I didn’t check the roof, though…”
“I appreciate your commitment to accurate skepticism, but you know damn well the steps weren’t coming from overhead.”
He nodded, glum. “I know, I know…” A soft buzzing came from the breast pocket of his shirt, and he peeked inside. “Shit. CeCe. This is going to be her saying she’s running late.” He slipped the phone out and, after the briefest hesitation, brushed a kiss over my cheek and headed for the front door to step outside and have some privacy.
“Have some toast,” Ezra called, and I realized breakfast was officially fully underway. Yancy and Enoch were crowded around the kitchen island while the older adults had taken seats at the butcher-block table. “Here,” he added, holding up a plain white mug. “Mrs. Carstairs has quite the tea stash.”
She smiled, her softly wrinkled face pinking as she turned it up towards me. “Coffee’s fine when you need a boost, but there’s nothing like a nice cup of tea, is there? I told your friend y’all are welcome to whatever bags you’d like. I had some nice loose-leaf but ran out a few days ago. If I’d have known I was having other tea drinkers over, I’d have made sure to add it to the list for Yancy to pick up in Austin! The grocery in town is fine if you like plain black tea or just want the fixings for sweet tea, but anything else, you have to go farther afield.” She shook her head mournfully. “I keep meaning to place an order with the store manager, but by the time I get hold of him on my weekly shops, I’ve forgotten.”
“You know, MeMaw,” Enoch offered, “you could just order it online from the retailer directly. I can show you how—”
“Enoch Carstairs, I know how to use the internet. I’m not a Luddite. I just prefer it from the store. Something about tea being mailed just makes it taste wrong.” She shrugged. “Besides, if I order it in the huge quantity the supplier requires for a shipment, it’s not as special. I’d end up drinking it all the time and then it wouldn’t be my little treat. Or my guest tea!”
“I’ll make sure it’s a standing order, MeMaw,” Yancy promised before shoveling a large bite of what looked to be white sauce and
bread into his mouth.
Enoch muttered something dire and angsty under his breath, focusing on his own plate with its pile of food. Beside him, Yancy elbowed him in the ribs and shot him a glare that had him apologizing to his grandmother in wounded tones.
Beside me, Ezra hovered into view, breaking the awkward tension of the moment. “I’ve been assured it’s delicious,” Ezra informed me, handing me a plate filled with the same stuff the Carstairs were eating: the flattened looking American-style biscuit, white gravy, and a side of something porridge-y, studded with what looked to be chunks of sausage and even more sauce. It was possibly more carbohydrates in one spot than I’d seen in my entire life. “I’d also have a cup of coffee after unless you want that blocking up the pipes for the foreseeable.”
I rolled my eyes. “Charming, you are.” We found space at the table, Ezra tucked between Mrs. Carstairs and Gerald, and me between Mr. Carstairs and the wall. “Thank you again for allowing us to stay, Mr. Carstairs,” I began.
He waved me off. “It wasn’t a hardship. And…” he glanced up at his mother, who nodded once, very small and tight. “And frankly, it’s not entirely altruistic.”
Enoch had gone very still, his spoon poised halfway to his mouth and dripping the meat porridge goop. Fear was writ large in his eyes, wide and staring at us at the table. “Pops…” he whispered. Beside him, Yancy made an abrupt movement that knocked into Enoch’s arm and sent the spoonful of food splattering back into the plate and Enoch’s shirt. His thin cheeks turned dark pink in embarrassment, and he ducked his face, but he didn’t get up from his seat. “Pops,” he tried again, “I told you…”
Mr. Carstairs cleared his throat. Beside Ezra, Gerald was determinedly cutting his food into small, starchy bites with a machine-like determination, not looking up or slowing down. I wondered how small he was intending to make those bites, or if we’d end this encounter with a plate full of microscopic bits of food in a neat stack on his plate. “You already know we’re well aware of who you are,” Carstairs began. “And… well, I might have been a bit less than honest about that. We let you think it was just Enoch who was a fan. All of us here,” he gestured to his family and Gerald, “we’ve been following your work since you had your little show online.”
Ezra met my wide gaze with one of his own. This was officially entering creepy territory. “I… I’m glad you’ve enjoyed our work,” I said carefully. “Might I ask where this is going?”
Carstairs nodded. “Well. It’s like this… We all here, we know ghosts are real. We know all about Mason Albright walking the land and waiting for his chance to go. Hell, he’s called the Wandering Ghoul around here—so many folks have seen him, usually right around when someone dies. We know all about the Tonkawa that are down by the crick and the murdered lady at the motor court.”
Gerald dropped his cutlery and glared at Carstairs. “David,” he growled, “ease up.” He turned his hooded glare in my direction and added, “Deb Carstairs had been missing a bit over a year now. It’s been pretty much radio silence from the local authorities, but people think… Well, they think the worst might’ve happened. He wants to find out what happened to her.”
“She’s not dead,” Enoch shouted, bursting to his feet like a flock of startled birds in motion. “She’s not dead! She’s just hiding!” He slammed his hands flat against the island and made a strangled, wet sound in his throat. “She’s not dead, Pops! Stop saying that!” Enoch choked on a sob, flinging himself away from the kitchen bar where he’d been perched on and running for the front door.
No one called out to stop him, even though he’d left a mess of cold, glopping food splattered across the island and onto the floor. Yancy sighed and closed his eyes. “I’ll go.”
“Let him cry,” Carstairs barked. “He’s too old for coddling.”
Yancy’s jaw tensed and something like anger flashed in his expression. “You don’t need to be cruel, Pops. He’s still a kid.”
“And he’s gonna stay that way if he doesn’t start owning up to what happened!”
Gerald growled a string of curse words, shoving away from the table and grabbing his plate and mug. He stalked to the sink and started scraping detritus off into the sink, running the disposal as we all sat in awkward quiet until he was done. “Enoch’s a child, David. A child. She ain’t been gone that long, not to him.” He swept a sour look over the room, lingering on me for a moment, before striding off in the same direction Enoch had fled.
“Is he gonna go after him?” Yancy muttered. “Christ. I’d better…” he made a helpless gesture at his food. “I’ll be right back.”
Mrs. Carstairs got to her feet and started clearing the food away—I was distantly surprised to see it was almost all gone, the Carstairs and their ranch hand having consumed it like so many locusts. Carstairs himself rested his head against his doubled fists on the table, a man grieving, and took a shuddering breath.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you if she’s moved on or not,” I murmured. “Sometimes, even if a ghost is still around, they don’t want to speak with me. Is there a particular reason you think she might be lingering?”
Carstairs lifted his face. “She was murdered. I always thought… I’d been told murdered haunts, they stay behind. They want justice or some such.” At the stove, Mrs. Carstairs clattered some pots and pans. It felt needlessly loud, like she was trying to interrupt. Sure enough, she shot a glare over her shoulder that felt at odds with her cherubic round face. Carstairs ignored her or seemed to. “The problem is. The problem is…”
“Oh, for land’s sake,” Mrs. Carstairs muttered. “She’s not the only one. She was murdered and Dewayne Hicks did it. We just want her body back, but he topped himself last year before we could find out where she’s buried!”
Chapter 7
Julian
I’m not a proud man.
Okay, that’s a lie. I’m extremely proud when the moment calls for it. However, hearing the shouting coming from the house after I’d stepped out to call CeCe, I was not ashamed to admit I hurried away from the porch and made a beeline for the gravel drive, putting myself at a distance that would make overhearing a family fight impossible.
A tiny part of me felt a pang of guilt—I should go back in, I thought, and interrupt, see if things were okay. Maybe even just give Oscar and Ezra an excuse to book it out of there and not be forced to sit in mortified polite silence as what sounded like Enoch and his grandfather screamed at each other. But I turned my back on the house and kept my phone pressed to my ear, my deep aversion to other’s awkward moments making me downright queasy at the idea of purposefully stepping into that argument. Besides, I reasoned with myself, CeCe was already behind schedule. I checked the time as I dialed her number. She was half an hour late.
CeCe running late didn’t surprise me. CeCe being unable to find an entire damn town, however, did. “How can you not be able to find this place?” I groaned. “It’s tiny, but not invisible. Did you take the South Road exit from the freeway?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “Harrison, slow down, I see a sign! No, it’s not the same one I saw earlier. Slow—Oh. Okay, yeah, that is the same one. Sorry. Where the hell did all the Factotum stations go, anyway? I haven’t seen one in business since we were like… six.”
“Cec, focus please,” I snapped. The tow truck had showed up just as I’d stepped out onto the porch, and now the car was long gone, the driver giving me a receipt with a mechanic shop address in a town called Reefter, which was apparently “up the road a ways.” We were officially stuck until CeCe got there, and I told her as much.
“I’m sorry,” she groaned. “But seriously, ask Harrison! We’ve been circling this area for an hour now and there’s not a single turn off into the damn town! Even the GPS gave up and just keeps saying it’s recalculating.”
I walked a bit farther down the drive, wary of the tenuous connection my phone had. It was flickering between two and three bars and the sound quality was shit—I had a feelin
g I’d be losing the call soon and the thought made me unsettled. It felt too much like we were being cut off, even though I knew better. The farmhouse had a landline, Carstairs had mentioned having a satellite phone they used when repairing fences out on the back end of the property since it was so remote and could be hazardous depending on what time of year it was. We had options. Hell, if we had to, we could all pack on to one of the ATVs I saw parked by the house like we were in a remake of Grapes of Wrath and meet CeCe and Harrison halfway.
Halfway to where, I wasn’t sure. But it’d be halfway away from here, and at the moment that seemed more important than a definite destination. “Okay, how about this: pull over at the next business y’all see and regroup? Re-enter the address and start from there.”
“The only business we’ve seen out here is a roadside stand selling pecans and jam, manned by a kid and an old lady.”
“Did it occur to you to ask them for directions to Budding?”
“Would you?” I didn’t have to see her face to know the expression on it. CeCe and I had never been good with people, especially strangers, and the idea of approaching not one but two to ask directions was nerve-wracking even in theory.
“Fair.” CeCe and I both shared an aversion to asking strangers for help, even in dire situations. But, unlike CeCe, I’d come to grips with the fact sometimes life was a slap in the face with a dead fish and you had to do things that made you wish you could rip your nails out instead. “Well, needs must, favorite sister. Tell Harrison to do it if you’re too nervous. Wait. He’s not on the clock right now, is he? This isn’t going to be something he’s charging hourly for?”
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