by Lyla Payne
Gramps starts coughing again, and this time he doesn’t stop. Bright red veins pop out in his cheeks and neck, and when they darken to purple, I move to his side. Fear grips my heart, lifts it into my throat. There’s nothing I can do for him, and watching his skin turn gray and water drip from his eyes makes me feel so helpless I could scream. The hacking rattles in his dry chest, banging around with such force that it must hurt like hell.
He’s a giant in my memory—towering over Amelia and me in the garden, grabbing all four of our arms in one hand—but now he’s weak, folded in on himself, and the reality shakes the house under my feet. Gramps is the last person I have in this world who makes me feel safe, wanted. Good enough the way I am.
And I’m going to lose him.
Beau’s at my elbow, his warm hand on the small of my back. “Give him a minute, Graciela. He’ll work through it.”
The murmur begs to offer comfort, but with the rug out from under me and the world spinning around, it doesn’t have much of a chance. His hand anchors me, though, and reminds me that I’m the healthy one. I can’t fall apart because Gramps needs me, now.
“How do you know?” My voice is small, as lost as I feel. My fingers grip my grandfather’s big toe, propped up on the recliner’s footrest, my eyes searching his face for signs that it’s not getting better.
“I spend a several evenings a month with Martin. He’s got some time left. Don’t give up on him.”
He reaches out and squeezes my wrist, letting go before the sensory overload turns me into a vegetable. Gramps recovers in the next several moments, taking sips from his soda and wiping his eyes on the Braves blanket covering his stiff legs. I kiss his head, trying not to make a fuss. There’s nothing he hates more, at least when it comes to his health. He loves a fuss if it’s over his birthday, or some other Gramps-focused celebration.
He peeks at me, and in that quick glance I see something beyond pain. It’s resignation, and the implication fills my body with a sorrow so complete everything else disappears. Gramps shakes his head at the tears welling in my eyes, but loneliness claws at my insides, makes me wish for someone to help me through this. Right now the loss of Amelia hurts more than ever, like a million shallow, stinging slashes across my skin. The combination of grief and anger burns, but mostly I wish she could help me shoulder this responsibility. We loved each other best, loved Gramps with equal ferocity, but she’s not here.
It’s like by leaving me to deal with this on my own she’s choosing Jake over me. Again and again and again.
“I think I’ll take off, Martin. I can see you’re in good hands here.”
Beau’s eyes meet mine, and relief cools the storm of pain and rage thundering inside me. He trusts me with Gramps, even after hearing my hitchhiking ghost story. At least that worry can be shelved since he doesn’t seem inclined to call…whoever you call to report an elderly person in need.
“I’ll be right back, Gramps, okay?”
He squeezes my hand and reaches for the headphones that allow him to hear the television without broadcasting the game for the tourists all the way down in Charleston. I lead Mayor Beau to the front door and thank him for stopping by, and for taking care of Gramps. The pause between us lengthens, the air between us thick with some kind of indecision, but he finally nods and steps backward over the threshold.
“Graciela?”
“Hmm?” My mind is in the living room, on Gramps. On my family, or what’s left of it.
“If I had tried to give you a hug right then, would you have slugged me?”
“Yes.”
I slam the door in his face but not before those dimples do their part to salve my frayed nerves. In the living room, Gramps seems better, chewing on his bottom lip as he watches the Braves’ pitcher try to get out of a two-on, no-one-out situation.
His pale eyes are sharp again instead of hazy with pain and flick my direction. “What are you smiling for, girl?”
“What? I’m not smiling.”
But damned if I’m not.
Gramps falls asleep in his chair before the game ends. I leave him there while I clean up the kitchen from our dinner of cereal and toast, inventorying the fridge and pantry in the process. The homemade jelly is running out—only four jars of strawberry left in the freezer. That might be a reason to call Aunt Karen, and pick her brain about Amelia in the process. She used to help them make it, so I know she’d be able to teach me, if I can pry her out of Charleston.
I help Gramps to the bedroom a little later and make sure he gets out of the bathroom and under the covers before heading to my den of blue-and-cream comfort. Moonbeams tumble past the gauzy curtains and lie on the bed like an extra set of blankets, but for the first night since returning to Heron Creek, sleep isn’t the first thing on my mind. Anne Bonny is, followed closely by the fact that my resentment of my cousin slips toward concern. Melanie’s words from the other night fester in the back of my mind, because even though I’ve done my best to act as though nothing she said made a difference to me, she’s not wrong about Amelia. Ignoring Mel, having Jake return her calls…none of it seems right.
She hadn’t come to my mother’s funeral, or Grams’s, and at the time it had sent me into an indignant rage. Now, thinking harder, it could reflect something more than just a lack of caring. A different problem. Knowing what I know about Jake, it doesn’t take much to imagine what exactly might be changing my cousin’s personality.
There’s no good course of action. When we fought five years ago, it ended with her informing me that, as far as she was concerned, we are no longer family. I can’t just waltz into her house and demand answers for her bizarre behavior, especially not now that she’s in the second trimester of a healthy pregnancy. It’s all she ever wanted, and upsetting her now would be a worse transgression than the first.
I take off my shorts and crawl into bed in my T-shirt, deciding that my teeth can wait until morning. I tell myself it’s because we barely had anything for dinner, but in reality, I’m a little bit spooked that there’s going to be a ghost reflected behind me in the mirror or lurking behind the glass shower doors. Once the cool sheets rustle over my legs, my thoughts wrestle with the possibility that the smelly woman in my room and my car is a long-dead lady pirate, and that maybe she’s not going away.
I wish I’d paid more attention to the stories about her as a girl, but perhaps it doesn’t matter because, as Beau says, the details regarding her lurking around Heron Creek are scant. Amelia, Melanie, Will, and I performed as many séances and spent as many nights scaring the pants off one another with ghost stories as the next group of kids—maybe more—but we mostly made up histories for the patches of gravestones in the ancient local graveyard. It was more interesting to have the full tale, and as someone who now has a graduate degree in the subject, I know that history rarely affords that kind of full accounting. Real people are harder to pin down, in life and in death.
The memory of my interview, and Mr. Freedman the Redux telling me about the extensive local archives, makes me look forward to going to work. Miracles will never cease.
Sleep should come easier knowing tomorrow could hold at least a few answers, but every time I close my eyes, the image of Beauregard Drayton shimmers behind them. He’s such a strange mixture of kind and cocky that he intrigues me far more than he should—far more than expected, given that I haven’t even thought about a man other than David for over five years.
I shove the thought of the mayor away and refuse to think about how long it’s been since anyone other than me got my blood pumping below the waist. He may not know me well enough to realize it, but I’m the exact opposite of the kind of girl a politician would want on his arm, and the idea of turning into one of those fembots, a younger version of Mrs. Freedman, makes me itch all over.
The minutes tick away on the clock beside the bed, turn into hours. I stare at the moon and the stars, not thinking about much of anything, really. The whiskey hidden in one of my trash bags tempts me,
but with work coming up fast, it doesn’t seem like the smartest idea.
Jesus, I even fail at being a depressed alcoholic. Any girl serious about giving up on life in general wouldn’t give a squirrel’s shit about the consequences.
Somehow, despite my best efforts—or non-efforts—tomorrow still matters.
Chapter Six
“That Mayor Drayton’s really something, huh, Gracie-baby?”
I roll my eyes, even though it’s exactly what he’s expecting. It seems like the right thing to give Gramps what he wants every chance I have. “He’s okay. A little overconfident.”
“You know, I think he thought you were prettier last night, without your makeup and fancy purple dress. He’s no dummy, and you can bet most of the single gals in town have made a pass. Not interested, though. Nope.” He slurps a bite of oatmeal doctored with a healthy dose of brown sugar and syrup.
He could be gay. The thought stays where it belongs, in my head, both because Gramps would argue and I don’t believe it for a second. The way he looked at me, the not-quite-hidden suggestion of interest in his gold-flecked eyes, betray him. I might not have been able to tell that my fiancé was sleeping with half of his graduate students, but surely I haven’t lost the ability to sense when a man is genuinely interested.
“Well, I’m sure it’ll be the same with me.”
Gramps shakes his head. “You’re just like your Grams. Don’t see the truth of how pretty you are—look just like her, too.”
The comment lifts the corners of my lips and swells my heart in my chest, even though it’s far from the first time he’s uttered some form of it. The fact that Grams and I bear such a strong resemblance to each other might be part of the reason Gramps has always had a special affection for me, and my Grams was a beautiful woman, even in her eighties. Regal. We do share features, along with a kind of prickly countenance, but she had grace—a quality that, despite my name, continues to elude me.
I get up and rinse out our bowls, helping Gramps take a quick stroll around the front yard, then into his chair. He’s situated with remote controls, blankets, his pills, and a drink all within easy reach, not to mention Mrs. Walters saw us outside, so she can’t say he’s not getting enough air. It’s an hour before the library opens when I step out the front door, taking a moment to breathe in the fresh morning air before it turns stagnant and sweaty.
Maybe it’s lingering fear of Anne’s ghost, or a sudden urge to burn some fat, but my feet find the sidewalk instead of my butt finding the driver’s seat of my car. I have an hour, and the walk will take fifteen minutes. I’ll regret it later, when the trek home in a hundred muggy degrees drenches me from head to toe, but that’s then.
I’m out to prove that I don’t give a shit about consequences after all. Fuck adulthood.
Avoiding my car turns out to be a moot point when, less than two blocks from Gramps’s house, the scraggly redhead from my backseat joins me on the sidewalk. Her gait matches mine, but her feet don’t make any sound on the concrete despite her clunky, knee-high leather boots. Lord if she doesn’t smell bad enough to gag a maggot, even outside.
Yesterday, I ran. Today, for some reason, it’s as though none of this is happening in real life, and I don’t go faster or slower, just keep going, eyes forward, clinging to the hope of waking up. It’s like swimming through the air with my blood pumping through me ten times too fast, depositing a chilly sweat on my brow and palms.
She doesn’t talk, but based on my sideways glances, the premise that she’s Anne Bonny seems legitimate. The smell and her stiff men’s shirt, trousers, and boots, combined with the sword and dagger belted at her waist, convince me that she’s Anne Bonny or that I’m going nuts. Or both.
The expression on her face wavers between frustration and sorrow, but nothing about it or her posture suggests causing harm is on her agenda. We walk side by side a few more steps, me and my reeking ghost, before my nerve returns out of nowhere.
Dead or not, she’s kind of starting to bug me.
“What do you want?” The question would sound more at home in the mouth of the first victim in a horror flick, but it has to be asked.
Even so, Anne—if it is Anne—doesn’t reply. Maybe she thinks it’s a dumb thing to ask, too.
“Okay, obviously you left your tongue in your grave. Let me guess, you want to grab a coffee and a bagel? I’m thinking about stopping at Westies, but I’m not sure…Oh,” I gasp as my body turns to ice.
My blood freezes in place, sluggish in its attempt to continue flowing; the soles of my sandals frozen to the pavement. When the chill lands in my chest it’s impossible to breathe.
The cause of the cold seems to be Anne’s fingers wrapped around my wrist. Below it, my hand may as well have disappeared, because there’s no feeling at all. Terror races as fast as the cold, enveloping me with equal strength. I’m going to die in the street, frozen into an ice sculpture in the middle of summer, and end up on one of those shows about unexplained alien murders on the Science Channel.
The ghost’s eyes reflect confusion at the look on my face, which must be horrible. Her gaze falls to my arm, and her fingers reflexively set me free. It takes several minutes for my skin to thaw out enough to allow movement. My teeth continue to chatter. For her part, the ghost doesn’t look the slightest bit apologetic. That, more than anything else, makes me sure she’s Anne Bonny. If even half the stories are true, she’s not the type to care much if she made the poor living girl uncomfortable.
Curiosity begins to trump my fear. For whatever reason, having a ghost stalker scares me less than if an alive person started following me, and aside from the unbearable cold of her grip, she seems harmless. A tad annoying, perhaps, but since she hasn’t tried to kill me yet, I’ll assume she doesn’t plan to.
Her expression changes again, morphing into a twist of desperation that’s so intense it makes me sick. She snakes a hand toward me again, but she snatches it back when I recoil.
Note to self: Ghostly types and touching do not go together.
“I don’t know what you want. I’m guessing you can’t tell me.”
Like her boots, her matted red hair makes no noise when she shakes her head. Grime smears her from head to toe, as though she climbed straight out of a grave for today’s visit. She points a cracked, blackened fingernail the direction I was headed before she turned me into a proper ice sculpture.
“You want me to keep walking the same way? That’s super helpful. Thank you so much.”
Her lips twist in a display of distaste that might make me laugh if our lack of ability to communicate didn’t frustrate me as well. It’s looking as though she’s not going away until I figure out what she wants, but the answer to how to make that happen sits outside my grasp. Less drinking and wallowing, more thinking.
Anne’s head snaps up, her eyes fixed down the empty street. I follow her gaze but see nothing. When I turn back, she’s disappeared, and a heartbeat later a young mother appears around the corner, jogging behind a stroller. Fantastic. She seems to like me, as Beau suggested in jest.
Why, I haven’t the slightest.
By the time I order my sugar-free iced vanilla latte at Westies—named by an owner obsessed with the dogs she breeds—my thoughts are completely consumed by the mystery of why Anne Bonny has taken an interest in me. There’s nothing special about me, nothing that relates to her as far as I know, but there must be a reason.
Unless I’m batshit crazy and don’t even realize it. That seems more likely than her picking me for some mysterious, specific reason.
My mind drifts so far from the comfortable coffee shop that I don’t see Melanie until she perches in the chair opposite mine and sets down a hot drink on the round table between us. The marker on the side of the cup declares it a decaf mocha, which sparks my interest. Mel’s been a caffeine addict since we could buy our own from the Kwik Stop.
She appeared so fast and so silently that if we hadn’t been friends since first grade I might assum
e she’s a ghost, too. “Hey, Gracie.”
“Hey, Mel. You’re up early.”
She gives me a wry smile. “Things change. Can’t exactly sleep past noon once there’s a baby in the picture.”
I nod toward her decaf mocha. “Or two?”
“Plus I have class this morning. Had to drop Grant off first,” she continues, ignoring my suggestion.
“Will mentioned you were going to school. What are you studying?”
“Accounting.”
“Hmm.” Silence invades the space between us, but we were friends for so long I can read her like a book.
She’s uncomfortable, and she sat down here to talk about something specific, not shoot the shit or catch up. We shared every secret for most of our lives, and even the fact that she married Will can’t erase twelve years of friendship. Over six years have passed without a single word, but despite the fact that it’s been as much my choice as hers, I hate that we’re uncertain around each other—like strangers, but not.
“Whatever you want to say, just say it, Mel.”
“I want you to stay away from Will.”
“Stay away from Will?” Incredulous disbelief begs me to laugh. “Are you serious? He’s your husband. You have a little boy together. Why should you feel threatened by me?”
Especially by me. The loser whose fiancé cheated, who ran away so she didn’t have to face the fallout. The one too stupid to realize that sometimes first love is the real thing. Was, I guess.
“I don’t need any uncertainty in my marriage right now, Gracie, and you and I both know why I should feel threatened by you.” Her dark gaze falls to my left hand. “Where’s your ring?”
She asks the question like it’s been burning a hole in her pocket since we ran into each other at the Freedmans’. It kills me that she and Will have likely been discussing what might have happened to send me scurrying back here to bury my head in the marsh. Heron Creek is a small town, and I don’t want to talk about it.
