Into the Gloaming

by Mercy Celeste

  “Am I dead?” Heath finally asked the question he’d dreaded the answer to.

  “Yes… and no. You’re both; dead and alive. And neither. It’s hard to explain. Follow me. Before we lose the little time, we have left. The wall has come crumbling down. You must be prepared.”

  “Prepared? For what?” He released the door handle and Osian tugged again. Setting his feet into motion. Heath didn’t seem to notice. Nor did he notice the creature on his knees crying into the blood-soaked earth. “Why do I smell horses?”

  Osian clasped their fingers together as if they were lovers out for a stroll on a fine summer’s night. The cold air that would come to ruffle their hair and chill their bodies easily ignored… for now.

  They left the stable, long before full dark, now. Night forever away. Funny how time went when you were neither here, nor there.

  Osian wandered the path that branched off from the main drive, around the back of the house, down the lane that led into the setting sun. And through the gates to the place, no sane person dared venture alone after dark.

  Up ahead, he saw the blazing eyes of the horse. The one that could be seen running between the oaks. The moss dripping from the boughs playing tricks with your eyes, but he was there, watching. The one who’d tried so hard to protect the boy who brought him sugar cubes… but ended up destroying the very thing he loved… fell into step beside the couple walking through the headstones.

  A century and a half of these people laid to rest here. Some who did not belong. Some who belonged somewhere else, but could not escape the shroud that held them to this ground. Like that poor unfortunate creature that walked beside them, his master and his friend. The friend he’d betrayed so very badly, watching them all from the safety of the oaks. Where his carcass rested beneath a century of dirt and foliage.

  “We’re in the cemetery?” Heath tried to pull his hand away. His fear growing now that he fell upon the familiar path, the evening walk into the setting sun when the air was cold, and the children cried the loudest. In a day, he would rest until the trees once again shed their summer greenery. Unless—

  “Yes… it all begins and ends here. Where she cannot find us. Where she cannot see. Where she is not condemned.”

  “Culla?”

  “Is that her name?”

  “It’s what he calls her. Sister. Mother. Keeper of his secrets and his sins.”

  “She is here… but not here exactly. Trapped… but… not trapped. She waited, biding her time. And now the door is open, and the wall has come down. And we have one sunset to keep this from all happening, one more turn of the Earth.”

  “What does that even mean?” Heath sounded as he should. Less like the boy with more secrets than any one soul should be cursed to hold. And more like the man, he could have become if… his soul was free to be who he would be. Could be.

  “‘Tis twelfth night. At midnight the clock stops again until the night the veil is lowered. And He will walk this walk again. If the secrets are not revealed. Your secrets. His secrets. Our secrets. The secrets we’ve kept for one hundred years. Your body touching mine… yet never knowing we were waiting for the other to come and save us from our dance with death.”

  “You’re not making the slightest bit of sense,” the man who’d once been his boy said as they came to stand at the base of the winged guardian. The one with eyes that no longer saw. His wings spread out wide over the family he’d been tasked to protect into infinity.

  “The angel,” Osian repeated the words he’d heard so many times. “I’m with the angel, Heath. With the others. The fragile souls that can never find peace. We are beneath his blind gaze. The ground is unconsecrated. We…” he took his hand away and stepped past the lovers, to look back upon them, his gaze to the east now… into the trees where the horse waited to be set free.

  He stood there, with the one who kept his soul, but could not see. His eyes open. For the first time. “We are here, Heath. In this dirt. All of us.”

  “I know,” Heath said, tears in his eyes now. And shame. “I’ve known—”

  “Since the night you buried the last secret that would ever need to be hidden. I know. I was here when you found me. But you could not see me. You could never see me… until he came. He made me real again. He made you real again. If you leave us in the dark this night… we will all… be doomed. He will leave. And you will forget. Unbury the past, my love. It’s not deep. Just a few feet. You know where we are.”

  He felt the sun sinking in the sky behind him. The shadow of the angel falling over him… to press him back into the earth… where he belonged. “Mo Gra´… my love… Let go. Heath. Let go. And fly.”

  ~

  Austin let go of the door handle.

  “The angel…” he gasped as his knees hit the cold floor.

  “They’re with the angel.” Heath echoed his gasp, his body tumbling to the ground, taking Austin all the way down, landing on him on the brick floor. His breathing, as harsh as Austin’s, his face stark white. “There’s no time. Where are the shovels? We need shovels. The sun is setting.”

  Heath scrabbled to his feet before Austin could catch his breath. He raced past the others, their faces as pale as Heath’s, as they stared at him as if he’d… come back from the dead.

  “You heard the man. Grab the shovels. The angel… they’re with the angel.” Austin shouted, knowing he sounded like a raving lunatic.

  “Austin?” Rory was the first to break the shocked silence that infected the others. “Who? Who exactly is with… what angel?”

  “The one in the cemetery,” Jemma answered, color rushing into her pale face. “Makes so much sense. Where do we keep the shovels?”

  And she was off at a run. While the other’s straggled behind. Rory reached down for Austin’s hand, but Austin brushed it away. He could take care of himself. “No, go. Get a shovel. The sun is about to set. I’ll be right behind you.”

  He struggled to his feet, pain lancing through his broken arm, causing him alarm. He’d landed on his cast, hard enough that he’d heard the crunch. He couldn’t use a shovel, but he had one good hand… he’d dig… until his fingers bled.

  He passed his apartment… the front wall melting away in the late afternoon light… the scent of blood and mud rising to choke him… the bloody pulp in the middle of his kitchen, sat up; a pile of rags rising from the soaked earth. The redhead boy he’d been once upon a time stepping out of the muck and the mire.

  “Hurry,” he said.

  Austin hurried. He just didn’t know what he hurried toward. Or if he’d survive one more shock to his system… but he hurried. Because he had no choice.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The diner smelled of grease and stale food. Austin’s stomach churned in a way that made him regret the decision to stop here. He held his arm to his chest and tried to drink the black coffee that sat in front of him. He couldn’t stop his hand from shaking long enough to get any into his mouth.

  “This is all I found,” an unfamiliar voice said, as a file hit the table with a fwaapping sound in front of Austin. “Police records are spotty that far back, but I found this on Osian Byrne filed in 1912. He reportedly stole a valuable horse and some silver from the house and ran off instead of returning to his family in Savannah. And that’s it.”

  Austin nodded, his gaze unfocused. The world around him seemed… surreal. Like he was waking up from a dream he couldn’t remember and found himself in a place he had no recollection of how he got there.

  “Yeah… jibes with what we pieced together about the boy.” He heard someone answer in his voice. His stomach growled. And he wondered if he was hungry or just needed to go vomit. Sometimes, especially lately, he couldn’t tell the difference.

  “The bones will be sent to a forensics lab in Atlanta. With no family to contact, we might never know who they belong to.” The guy, Austin didn’t know, sat across from him, cupping his coffee like it was precious. The sun coming up behind his head, wreathing it in
an orange halo effect that made Austin question his sanity.

  “We don’t know where he came from. Not really. Other than the bit about Savannah that you just told me… there aren’t many real records of the servants in the household. Just a random mention of a stable boy running off was all we had to go on. And later some mentions of the oldest son’s behavior after the fact.”

  “You’re thinking the older son might have killed the boy? Wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for teen boys. Especially in that class dynamic. The Cortlandt boy had power over the stable boy.” The guy, whoever he was, was hot in a way Austin would definitely appreciate… at any other time.

  “Uh… no. We think the older son… well, we think they were lovers. The father must have discovered their attraction and… he had a reputation for having a horrible temper.” Austin tried the coffee again. He needed something to settle his stomach, or he really would puke.

  “Sodomy was a crime, punishable by death back then, in a lot of places. Hell, sodomy was a crime in Georgia until just a few years ago. Guess that would explain why the clothes weren’t on the body. Like they’d been thrown in on top when he was buried. Still, could have been the son. Maybe to cover up something—”

  “Like he forced the stable boy into sex because he had no other outlet?” Austin didn’t want to argue. He’d sound like he knew more than he should. With no proof to back up any of this… hell, the cops thought they were all crazy as it was.

  “Could be. The bodies in the attic seem to tell a different story. Maybe the father was the one abusing the stable boy. Maybe he killed him while forcing himself on the boy. It doesn’t explain the missing horse. The silver was found in the chest with some jewels and money. Whoever stole from the family would have been set for a couple of years if they could find someone to pawn that stuff off on who was honest… the infant bones, though. That one has me baffled.”?

  Austin just shrugged. The last few hours had destroyed him. He couldn’t even begin to explain any of this to anyone, he’d be locked up for a three-day rest at the local hospital. Maybe that wasn’t a bad idea. The food came and the detective dug in as if he’d never seen food in his life.

  The very scent of food sent Austin’s stomach into open rebellion.

  “Eat something. You’ll feel better. Give the pain meds something to latch onto before they rot your gut.”

  Austin picked up a French fry. Why’d he order fries and a sandwich at breakfast time? And chewed. Forcing himself to swallow. Then another. And a third.

  “Bring my friend a milkshake. Something simple to settle his stomach.” He heard the detective ask the waitress when she came back.

  “Vanilla,” Austin said. He didn’t care. As long as it wasn’t chocolate. And he didn’t know why he didn’t want chocolate. It seemed an odd thought.

  “How’s your arm?” The detective stopped asking the hard questions and went to the reason they were both sitting here.

  “Broken. Again. Rebroken? Don’t know. They put a new cast on it. I’ll be in it longer.” Austin picked up another fry and chewed. The acid in his stomach stopped churning at least. “I need to get back.”

  He didn’t. Not really. There was nothing left for him here. His vision self had been wrong about that. He’d been wrong about everything. Except where the bodies were buried.

  The detective opened his notebook and didn’t answer until after he’d finished half his meal. Austin’s milkshake came. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it helped ease the pain in his stomach.

  “You were injured in a freak car accident on Christmas Eve? According to the police report, there was no way you should have survived getting hit by that car.”

  He wanted to say he’d not been hit by the car. But… there was no way to explain being thrown back against the fence like that. Even the woman driving the Suburban wasn’t sure if she’d hit him or not. Just that she saw someone when she skidded out of control. She’d seen the ghost of his lover. No way he was going to get away with that. Rory hadn’t helped much. Babbling about him flying through the air and landing against the fence as he had. Well, he wasn’t wrong.

  “The curb stopped the SUV before it could do much damage. The fence wasn’t the softest place to land. I’ll remember that for next time.”

  “The milkshake is helping. You’re being a smart-ass again. Means your brain is working. Now… stop dicking me around and tell me the truth. What the hell did I see last night and why are you all so tight lipped about what went on in that graveyard?” The detective nailed him with a glare that said Austin was fucked.

  “Fuck,” Austin said. And scooped a fry into his milkshake. His hand still trembling. But he blamed that on the medication. He couldn’t feel his arm. Not right now. That wouldn’t be the case in an hour or two, and he dearly wanted to be in his bed when the feeling came back.

  “Fuck is probably appropriate.” The detective closed his notebook and pushed his plate aside. “If I hadn’t come back with questions and witnessed your jolly little-grave-raiding-party-procession would you have called the authorities about what you found in that… I hesitate to call it a grave. Or just rebury the bodies?”

  Austin sighed, and rubbed his eyes with his good hand. Not much feeling in that one either. “We didn’t know if we would find anything. Just… a hunch. The journal kept saying shit about so and so being with the angel now. Not angels. Angel. Singular. After the bodies in the attic… after you told me there was a second body… I couldn’t stop wondering about the stable boy. I never thought he ran off. Too much didn’t make sense about him. The journalist would never have mentioned the boy at all. Which made it stand out. He wasn’t part of her household. She wouldn’t notice what went on in the stables. That would have been all on the master of the house… or the head groom, or however their hierarchy worked.”

  “So, you and your merry band of archeologists went off to dig up a graveyard? Because you had a hunch?” And now the detective was getting to his point.

  “Are you going to arrest me?” Because Austin was fucking tired of just beating around the bushes all the time. He needed a shower and to sleep for a week. After that, he didn’t care what happened to him.

  “Should I arrest you for something? Besides lying to me.”

  “Dude, I haven’t lied to you about anything. And… it’s not like I killed any of these people. They’ve been dead since before my grandparents were born.”

  “But you haven’t exactly told me any truths either, have you?” The detective stole one of his fries and pointed it at him.

  “That area of the cemetery didn’t have any marked graves. The owner of the property gave permission. There is no law against digging a hole in your property. It was just pure coincidence that we just happened to find a trunk full of treasure, missing for a hundred years… and… two bodies.”

  “Four bodies. You found four bodies yesterday. You did.” He ate the fry, after pointing with it, again. “Are there any more bodies buried out there that shouldn’t be buried out there?”

  “Jesus… how should I know? The first bodies were a complete surprise to me. I hadn’t read a single thing in any of the family papers that would lead me to believe old HC was stuffed in a wall with his drawers around his ankles. But yeah, the body under the angel… I… didn’t expect to find it. Maybe I hoped the kid ran off and I was wrong about it all. That happened fairly often back then. It was easy for people to disappear then. Escape their horrible lives and start over somewhere else under a new name. Records weren’t as well kept back then.”

  “Or end up murdered by their employer and buried in the cemetery where no one would think to look? Because records weren’t kept back then.”

  “That’s the best place to hide a body, isn’t it? Who in their right mind will look in a freaking cemetery for a fresh grave? Next to feeding it to the pigs, which they didn’t have any of, then… Jesus, I can’t believe we’re having this discussion in a diner.”

  The detective laughed. And stole ano
ther fry. “Seems you’ve considered, in great detail, how to get away with murder, Doctor Baylor.”

  “Sure, and I went back in time to commit the perfect crime. You hang around graveyards long enough, you pick up some odd quirks.” What the hell was he saying?

  “Is that what you do? Hang around graveyards?” The detective wasn’t writing anymore. He was all smiles and lounging around like he had all the time in the world. He reached for another of Austin’s fries, but Austin beat him to the plate. The satisfied smirk on the man’s face made Austin want to yank out all his hair.

  “It’s part of the job description. One reason I went into both history and anthropology. I love old houses. Really old houses. And old cemeteries tend to go along with old houses. I spent one semester on a dig at a plantation in South Carolina instead of going to school. Because it’s what I wanted to do. History and digging up the past. Hands-on. I can teach, or I can do this.”

  “And what is it you’re doing here at the old Cortlandt house?” Accusations turned to small talk, that seemed suspiciously like… a date.

  “What’s your name again?” Austin wasn’t in the mood to be courted. Or tricked into being comfortable with a cop.

  “Daniel Hightower, Detective Daniel Hightower. Or just Danny, if it would make you comfortable.” The detective reached for another fry. This time Austin pushed the plate to him. He’d lost his appetite, anyway. Not that he had one, to begin with.

  “Hightower?” Austin sipped from the tall glass, his shake starting to melt into vanilla milk. “Why does that name ring a bell?”

  “You probably came across it in some of your readings on the Cortlandt family. The Hightowers were distant relations. They had a place about a mile from Cortlandt Manor. Not as grand, but there wasn’t anything as grand as the Cortlandt house back then… or so I’m told. My grandfather used to tell stories about parties at the manor when he was very young. He would have been a friend… maybe even a cousin of the young man who died in the car wreck about a hundred years ago. So… I’m not unfamiliar with the family history. Just not as familiar as you are, it seems.”