by Catie Rhodes
“You think it’s a ghost?” Mysti peered at me from Griff’s side. “The spot where this started happening is where that Blessed Union community was. The one Tyler said the Coachman burned to the ground.”
“Maybe, but I don’t sense a ghost.” I crept into the room and approached Griff. I hovered over him with my hand out. I wanted to touch his back to see if a ghost had somehow attached itself to him. With a ghost already trying to possess me, why wouldn’t one try to possess Griff?
“Go ahead.” He made a sour face.
I pressed my hand to his sweat damp T-shirt. Nothing came to me but the smell of fire and frying flesh. I jerked my hand away. “I don’t know.” Just as I spoke the words, Zora’s wailing started up inside my head. I ached to go to her for reasons that made no sense. Her little voice saying, I remember you from before, echoed in my mind.
I grabbed Griff’s ever-present pack of cigarillos off his nightstand and let myself out the French door leading from the master bedroom into the backyard. I stomped across the field stones and parked myself in a metal chair. My hand shook too bad to light one of Griff’s cigarillos.
Inside my head, the wailing continued, relentless, maddening. I tried again and this time got the cigarette lit but dropped the lighter. I got on my knees, wincing at the cold ground on my bare knees, and felt around for it, incessant wailing my constant companion.
Don’t you remember me? the whisper came from nowhere and everywhere. It came from inside me.
I jerked and hit my head on the underside of the chair. The lighter was right in front of me. I snatched and slammed it down on the little metal table. Too agitated to sit, I paced across the field stones, jetting smoke like a locomotive on a mission.
Do you remember? The whisper came again. My black opal sent a shock through me. I clapped my hands over my ears, even though it came from inside me, tugging at my heartstrings, bringing back memories I’d locked away in the most secure vault in my mind. It was no use. The Coachman’s tampering had broken them loose.
I remembered the lines on the home pregnancy test, the feeling of fear laced with excitement. The promises I’d be a better mother than mine had. The ideas for building a better life. And, then, the day it all ended at the hands of an abusive asshole who’d tricked me until it was too late.
Were spirits reborn? My gut said yes. What’s more, it said Zora and I had known each other before.
The door opened, and Griff appeared in it. He hacked several times. “I think I’d feel better if I smoked.”
Mysti appeared behind him. “That’s stupid.”
Wade came out the main set of double French doors off the living room holding a pack of his own cigarettes. Griff hurried toward us. I handed over his cigarillos.
I waited until he lit one of his death sticks and inhaled before I spoke. “Do you know anything about reincarnation?” My breath came out in vapor.
“Just that I’m not sure if it exists.” Griff sat in his metal chair with his head leaned back.
“Oh, I believe in it.” Mysti joined us, belting her robe around her. She handed me mine. “Are you saying Griff’s issues are because he’s the reincarnation of someone who died in that fire at Blessed Union?”
“It’s all I can figure.” I ignored the incredulous face Griff made. “Look, I’ve been having some odd shit happen ever since I met Zora.” I glanced at Wade. I didn’t want him to hear this. Saying it hurt every inch of my heart. “I think maybe she’s the reincarnation of a baby I, uh, lost when I was married to my first husband.” The details were too much. I couldn’t even verbalize them. Tears stung the back of my sinuses. I sniffled.
Wade hurried to my side, reached out one hand to touch me, drew it back, and backed away from me. Was that the signal I’d been looking for? The one that said never ever ever? Or was it the signal that maybe?
“So whatever psychic connection you have with Zora means I’m the reincarnation of some poor person murdered in that fire?” Griff pulled hard on his cigarillo, eyes averted from me.
I shrugged. “Maybe not.” I stubbed out what was left of the stolen cigarillo in the ashtray, stood, gathering my robe around me, and went inside.
The kitchen, lit only by the pre-dawn gloom and the ambient glow of the streetlights, fit my mood. I made coffee in the dark and pulled myself onto the counter to sit while it brewed. Wade came back in the house first. I heard Mysti’s fierce voice before he shut the door.
He came into the kitchen and stood in the dark. “I didn’t, uh, know.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. Okay?”
Telling Griff about Zora and about my secret had cost me too much. The idea of discussing it with Wade, after everything between us, hurt in a way I couldn’t handle right now. Neither Wade nor I spoke until Griff and Mysti came into the house. One of them snapped on the kitchen light. I winced and squinted against it.
Griff came to stand next to me. “I’m sorry for talking to you that way.” He glanced at Mysti and reddened. “I’m sorry for discounting your opinion.” He stood over me, for once not my boss but just a guy as scared as I was.
The coffee finished brewing. I poured Griff a cup and handed it to him. He sipped from it but wouldn’t look at me.
I got my own cup of coffee and stepped away from the machine to stand nearer to Griff. “You don’t have to apologize to me. I understand. This thing with Zora is both great and horrifying.”
“Horrifying.” He nodded. “Burning to death is a bad way to go. But I wonder if that man knew something we could use now against the Coachman.”
Mysti set down her coffee. “Nothing is ever random. The universe has a design. Most of the time we wander unaware. But sometimes…” She shrugged.
“Maybe I should do a past life regression.” Griff put both hands around his coffee mug, cradling it.
“That’s outside my wheelhouse.” Mysti glanced at Wade.
He shook his head. “Where’s Bradley? Maybe he can do a past life regression.” The expression on Wade’s face suggested he believed no such thing.
Mysti gave him a wry smile. “Sleeping. Baby brother likes the easy life. As for past life regressions, he’s never done one that I know of.”
Griff rolled his eyes. “Then let’s get to work on something we do know how to do.” He drained his coffee cup and poured another. “We’ve got about an hour before full light. Let’s surprise this poisoner in her home. Show her what happens when she jeopardizes my star employee.”
THE COMING DAWN silvered the sky, and nobody except the GPS robot talked as Griff drove north on the freeway until he found the right exit. The subdivision, built sometime in the Saturday Night Fever era, had started its decline a few decades before we found it. The streetlights, still glowing in the morning haze, cast a grim pallor over the run down houses. We passed a house someone had started painting a too bright blue only to stop halfway up the first wall. Griff turned onto the street next to it. He drove only a few yards, stopped the SUV, and turned off the engine.
“Continue onto the route,” the GPS robot narrated.
Griff tapped the screen of his cellphone to stop the directions. He started to speak but stopped and stared out the window. We all tensed for trouble. A barefoot man walked past the SUV, holding a joint to his lips as though marijuana use had already been legalized in Texas. His squinted eyes saw only the sidewalk ahead of him. We weren’t on his radar. He turned the corner and kept walking. Mysti let out a nervous giggle.
“Best I can tell, our poisoner’s house is right over there.” Griff pointed at a house across the street we’d just left. The cockeyed green shutters needed a new coat of paint. Untrimmed shrubs covered the front window, making the place look deserted. But a newish economy sedan sat in the driveway. “The license plate matches the one on Yvonne Miller’s security video.”
“So we just go over there and beat on the door?” My fists itched for revenge, but the closer we got to confronting the woman, the more anxiety tightened my body. What else
did she have ready to blow into my face? The next dose of poison might kill me.
“We’ll go through the backyard. Give her a good shock.” Wade had scooted forward on his seat and leaned between Griff and Mysti’s bucket seats. “See the gate? It’s not really closed.”
We climbed out of the car and walked down the sidewalk, casual as clowns wearing rainbow Afro wigs, and crossed the poisoner’s lawn. The winter grass crunched under my feet, and a dog next door began to bark. I quickened my steps and wrestled the backyard gate open all by myself.
The shaggy grass humped in furry, crisp bluffs of brown death that crackled as we crossed. Wade pulled black leather gloves onto his hands and pushed around us. He gripped the patio door’s handle, probably getting ready to yank it off track, and froze.
“Aw, shit. Somebody done beat us here.” He glanced at Griff and tipped his head at the door, open a tiny crack.
Griff joined him and slumped. “Go on in. Might as well look around.” He raised one finger to Mysti and me. “Touch nothing.”
Wade slid open the patio door. He led the way inside.
The patio opened into a dining room dominated by a cheap wood and glass table. Makings of a witch altar, not unlike Mysti’s, crowded the table. The living room lay directly behind it, a green cloth recliner positioned so whoever sat in it could enjoy the fabulous view of the tiny backyard with its rotting privacy fence.
At first glance, the woman in the recliner appeared to be watching us, but the blood running from the corners of her squeezed shut eyes, and the bib of blood on the front of her clothes told a different story. She had died hard and ugly. Duct tape, blood covered and barely visible, bound her to the chair. We crept across the carpet as though making too much noise would disturb her eternal rest and came to stand around her.
My black opal pulsed against my chest. The Coachman’s presence lingered the same way a stinky fart does in a closed-up car. My throat closed, and I took several steps backward.
Caw. Caw. Caw.
I glanced back at the patio door, and saw Orev perched on the fence.
Caw. Caw. Caw. He leaned forward with each one.
The black opal heated until I had to pull it away from my skin. Priscilla Herrera’s mantle, my power now, stirred. I had called neither the power nor the bird. They had come on their own to help. What was wrong? It hit me that we might not be alone in this house. I whispered to Orev. “Is the Coachman still here?”
Mysti jerked to attention. She closed her eyes, and I could almost see her turning herself inward, searching. Her chest rose and fell with quick, panicked breaths.
“You see him? Feel him?” She reached into her bag, probably clutching some potion to repel ghosts.
“I feel him.” My voice trembled. “I can tell he killed this woman by sucking out her power, but I can’t tell if he’s gone.”
Something moved behind the corpse’s still, pallid skin. A set of ghostly eyes opened. Bright light flashed in my brain and shocked its way through the rest of my body. My knees buckled, and I went down, the rough, stale carpet scraping against my cheek.
The sunset pours through the patio door, glowing off the items assembled on the table. A group of people stand with their backs to me, blocking my view of the chair.
“Don’t. Please don’t. Nobody knows me. Nobody saw me.” The poisoner’s voice is guttural and ugly.
“A sacrifice must be made.” The Coachman’s voice comes from everywhere and nowhere.
“And it’s going to be you.” This voice of an older female, the same one I’d heard when the Coachman was summoned, pings against my memory. I stumble after the memory, but can’t catch it. She continues speaking, her voice dull and emotionless. She is just stating the facts. “You’re the weakest link. The only one who can lead back to the rest of us. And you’ve already served your purpose.” Duct tape rips, and someone slaps it into place.
Dark energy, sharp and ruthless, rumbles at the edges of the room. The Coachman forms out of the dust motes and shadows and saunters toward the woman, eyes gleaming and a sneer curving his lips. A mumble goes through the witches surrounding the recliner. The ghost passes through them. The woman bound to the chair begins to scream through her nose.
The Coachman leans over her, mouth opening and elongating. Her life force leaks from her nostrils. The Coachman sucks it up like it’s an extra-rich chocolate malt. She screams through her nose, body straining in agony. The screaming goes on for a long time.
I came to with Wade slapping my cheeks, his brow pinched. He pulled me to my feet. My knees buckled again. The floor rushed up to meet me. Wade clamped one arm around my waist and pulled me upright.
“What’s wrong with you?” he muttered under his breath.
“The Coachman drained my energy again. I don’t know how, but he did.” A cold sweat broke out on my face, and the coffee I drank on the way over gurgled in my stomach. My teeth began to chatter. “I ache all over. Like I’ve got the flu.”
“It’s like he has you wire-tapped.” Mysti came closer. “Every time you interact with the spirit world, all your energy flows to him. There might be a way to block him, but we won’t find it here.”
The poisoner’s ghost appeared in the hallway, presumably leading to the small house’s bedrooms. She beckoned with one transparent arm.
“The ghost wants to show me something.” Forming words took great effort, and black dots appeared at the corners of my vision. I gestured at the hallway where the ghost waited.
“The Coachman?” Mysti rapid-fired the words at me. I had to think for a second to interpret them.
“No. The poisoner.” My head swam.
“If you harm Peri Jean, I’ll banish you into darkness forever.” Mysti spoke in a loud, clear voice. She took a vial of holy water out of her purse to back up her claim.
The ghost made no response other than to lead us deeper into the house. We walked through a master bedroom furnished with a black, metal futon bed and a thrift store chest of drawers. On top of the chest of drawers lay a keychain with Neecie spelled out in baby blocks. I groaned. We’d been set up from the start.
“What is it?” Mysti whispered from behind me.
“Travis’s girlfriend.” I pointed at the keychain. “Remember his older woman? He was impressed because she had a house?”
Mysti closed her eyes.
Neecie’s ghost beckoned me from the tiny master bath. I stepped inside and tripped over the peeling linoleum. Wade grabbed my arm and stopped me from cracking my skull on the sink. The ghost gestured at a book lying on the floor next to the toilet.
“Reading material for the thinking throne.” Griff reached past me and picked up the book.
The ghost’s face morphed from normal, if plain, to wider eyes than any living human ever had and a mouth set into a howl of rage. She lashed out at Griff, growing bigger as she came, and knocked the book from his hand. Griff yelped and danced backward into Mysti. The two of them tangled and fell back into the master bedroom. The book bounced off the toilet. The ghost gestured for me to pick it up.
“You’re lucky it didn’t fall in the toilet.” I bent to pick up the book. Wade reached for it. “No. Don’t. She only wants me to pick it up.” I reached for the book, the idea that it could be poisoned twisting around in my brain. I closed fingers around it, and the black opal heated.
His secret is in here. The whispered words snaked through my thoughts, sinuous and creepy. I held the book up to the brightening light streaming through the window. Nineteenth Century Spiritualists of America.
The doorbell rang. We all froze. I held my breath. It rang again, and someone pounded on the door. We crept into the living room. The doorbell rang and the door rattled as the person banged on it.
“Neecie? You in there? Coco ran away again. She was barking a few minutes ago, and now she’s just gone.” Pound pound pound on the door. “You hear me?” The sound of footsteps on concrete came through the door as she walked away. We all relaxed. Then the gate cr
eaked open. Griff and Mysti raced for the hallway, Wade dragging me behind them. Coco’s owner tapped on the patio door. We leaned against the hallway wall, all of us breathing hard. I peeked around the edge of the wall.
The woman cupped two skinny hands to the glass. “Neecie? I see you in the living room. You just asleep?”
Wade dragged me back to the master bedroom, motioning Griff and Mysti to follow with his free arm. He pointed to the room’s one window. It opened onto the narrow alley between this house and the next one. Griff worked the lock, pushed the window up, and knocked the screen out. From the living room came the sound of the moronic neighbor still trying to wake up Neecie’s corpse. Mysti climbed out the window and dropped onto the ground. Griff went next and reached back inside to help me out. The last thing I heard from inside the house was the sound of the patio door sliding open.
Then the screams started. “Oh my God! Neecie! You all right?”
Of course she isn’t all right, you nitwit.
Wade bailed out the window and scooped me into his arms before I could resist. Griff, Mysti, and Wade hightailed it back to the SUV, me bouncing along for the ride like a big dummy. We got into the car, and Griff sped away from the curb just as the neighbor ran out the front door, hand over her mouth. She must have finally realized Neecie would not be able to help her look for Coco.
15
MYSTI GAVE me one of her herbal pick-me-ups. I ate it, expecting the usual fast recovery. The overpowering sluggishness lifted. I leaned against the door and closed my eyes.
“Better?” Mysti turned in her seat to watch me.
I nodded, eyes still closed.
“This whole thing is taking its toll on you. The weaker you get, the more vulnerable you are.” She glanced at Wade.
He glared at her. “That a hint for me to heal her, hippie witch?” His voice raised to a near holler. “I can’t. If that spirit had taken a bite out of her, I could fix that. But not this.” He took off his coat and spread it over my lap.
