Chris glanced at her sister. “I’ll pop home and get some for you,” she said and disappeared.
Cursing, Chris fumbled for her phone and speed-dialed Derek’s number. She swore when it went to voice mail. “It’s me. Marsha’s at the mansion. I’m almost there, probably about to do something dangerous. You want me to be safe? Then come and back me up.” She started to hang up, then remembered. “And bring some ear plugs.”
She hung up the phone and tossed it in the passenger seat. Then she stepped on the gas.
She could hear the spirit’s wailing before she reached the house. The estate’s long driveway wound through woods, unlit the entire way. If not for the headlights of her car, Chris would be in total darkness. Gooseflesh danced up and down her arms and back as she navigated the dark lane. Simply because she’d been doing this sort of thing most of her life didn’t mean she didn’t get creeped out sometimes, and this was definitely one of those times.
Driving as fast as she dared—which wasn’t nearly as fast as she wanted—she cranked up the radio to drown out the crying. At last, the woods opened up to reveal the house and its massive yard, all unlit. She could make out a figure up ahead in the darkness. Not the white lady, but Joe, waving her closer.
She parked and got out. Joe met her at the car. At the same time, Ron appeared. “Here.” She handed Chris a pair of orange foam earplugs. Chris had no idea how she transported objects like that, especially over such a distance, but she didn’t have time to ask. “Put these in.”
“She’s in the kitchen,” Joe said while Chris fiddled with getting the earplugs in. “She was making tea when I left her. You’d better hurry, though. It looked like the crying was starting to get to her.”
“What about the white lady?”
“I haven’t seen her, but I can sure as shootin’ hear her.”
“We all can,” said Ron.
With the earplugs firmly in place, Chris tilted her head to listen. She could, in fact, still hear the spirit, but the plugs helped to dampen both the sound and its melancholy effect. “You guys did good, but I’ve got it from here. You should go home.”
“What?” Ron looked at Joe, then at Chris as though she’d lost her mind. “You’re kidding, right? We’re not leaving you here alone.”
“I’ll be fine. Derek’s on his way.” She wished she felt as confident of that as she sounded, but the truth was she had her doubts.
A flash of light grabbed her attention. She looked down the drive and saw headlights meandering up the wooded lane. “See?” she said, letting bravado cover her relief. “He’s already here.”
“But does he have earplugs?”
“I told him to bring some. We’ll be fine. You two don’t have any defense against this thing. If you’re still here, I’ll be too busy worrying about you to take care of Marsha.”
Ron started to argue, but Joe put a hand on her shoulder. “She’s right. There’s not much we can do here.” The wailing grew loud enough to make Chris start questioning her life choices in spite of the earplugs. “’Sides,” Joe said, raising his voice to be heard over the racket, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
Ron looked at him a moment, taking in his haggard appearance. Resignation settled over her features. “Fine.” She turned to Chris. “But I’ll be camped out by the answering machine. You call if you need me.”
“I will,” she promised. Once they both vanished, she turned to wait for Derek. But as the car emerged into the clearing, her heart sank a little as she saw that it wasn’t the familiar silhouette of Derek’s Mustang that approached. The vehicle pulled to a stop next to Chris’s car and her dad got out.
“What are you doing here?” Before Chris could even begin to think of an explanation, he asked, “What the heck is going on? What did you say to Marsha?”
“What? I—”
“I was coming back here tonight so I could sneak in while she’s asleep and surprise her in the morning. I’ve been driving all night. But I was twenty minutes out of Tulsa when I get a call from her telling me the wedding’s off. Did you have something to do with this?”
“No!”
“Then what’s going on?”
“It’s complicated,” Chris said. “Marsha’s dealing with some stuff and she’s not quite herself. I’ll explain everything but first we need to find her.”
“What do you mean, find—” Another wail, even louder than before, cut him off. He put his hands over his ears. “What is that racket?” Suddenly, his eyes grew wide as he looked past Chris. She turned to follow his gaze and saw her. The white lady floated down the hill toward the pond, wailing and tearing at her dress as she went.
Chris reached out and grabbed her dad’s arm. She could feel him shaking. When he spoke again, his voice was a whisper. “What is that?”
“That,” said Chris, squeezing his arm, “is a ghost.”
He looked at her, clearly dumbfounded. “But… I mean, for real?”
“Yes, Dad.” She tried to keep the impatience out of her voice but failed. “For real.”
He looked back at the apparition in amazement. “Why is she crying?”
“It’s a long story. We need to find Marsha and then we all need to get out of here. Come on.”
She tugged him as she started for the house, but before they reached the steps leading up to the porch, the front door opened and Marsha came out.
“Marsha!” Drew called, snapping out of his daze at the sight of her. “Sweetheart, what is going on? Why’d you call off the wedding?”
“It’s no use, Drew,” she said, not even looking in his direction as she came down the steps. He reached for her, but she brushed him off and moved past him. “It’s no use.” Her voice sounded flat and lifeless. “It’s over. It’s all over.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
She ignored him and headed down the hill in the same direction the white lady had gone. The ghost herself had reached the pond and kept going until she was completely submerged. Rather than silencing her, that only made her crying louder than ever. As if in a trance, Marsha plodded down the hill toward the pond.
“Dad, stop her!” Chris called, but instead of pursuing his fiancée, Drew sunk to his knees. “It’s over,” he muttered.
“No, Dad! What are you—” Chris swore, realizing it was useless. She left him there to go after Marsha, who’d already made good time booking it down the hill. “Marsha!” Chris got in front of her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook. “Snap out of it!”
Marsha blinked, and her eyes focused on Chris. She looked confused. “Chris?”
“Come with me, back to the house. We need to get out of here. Right now.”
Marsha shook her head, and the dullness settled back over her features. “No. I have to do this. Let me do this.”
“Marsha—”
“Get out of my way!” she shouted, and shoved Chris. Unprepared, Chris lost her balance and fell backwards, landing hard enough to knock the wind out of her. By the time she could breathe and move well enough to sit up, Marsha had already reached the pond and waded in.
“Marsha!” she screamed and looked back at her father, who sat on the ground, looking dazed and hopeless. “Dad! Do something!”
But he simply sat there. A sound came from him that Chris realized was a sob. Muttering curses under her breath, she got to her feet and stumbled toward the pond, where Marsha was already in up to her waist. “Marsha!” she called, but Marsha ignored her. Now she was up to her chest. There was nothing else to be done. Chris kicked off her shoes, tossed her phone on the grass, and waded in after her.
She was in up to her knees and about to dive in and swim to Marsha when suddenly, a pair of arms grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out of the water. Her ‘rescuer’ stumbled and they both fell, with Chris on top. She rolled to the side and looked over to see Derek, wet and panting and looking alarmed.
“What are you doing?” he asked her.
“Not me,” she s
aid, pointing back at the pond. “Marsha!” As they both looked, Marsha’s head disappeared under the water.
Derek swore as he scrambled to his feet and rushed into the pond. After a moment, he was deep enough to dive in all the way. It was too dark to see anything. Chris crawled over to where she’d left her phone and fumbled for the flashlight app, then held it up over the water. But as she did, the sky began to lighten enough to see bubbles rising to the surface over the spot where Marsha had gone under.
The crying stopped. Chris muttered thanks and tore the plugs out of her ears. She watched, waiting, holding her breath.
Behind her, her dad called, “Chris?” She glanced back to see him getting to his feet. He stumbled down the hill until he reached her. “What’s going on?”
“She’s in there. Derek went in after her.”
“Who—” Before he could finish, the surface broke and Derek appeared, gasping for air. He swam for the shore, dragging a limp and lifeless Marsha behind him.
“Marsha!” Drew cried. He waded into the water to meet them. Chris set down her phone and followed. Her dad met Derek where the water became shallow enough to stand and took Marsha from him, cradling her in his arms as he carried her back to shore.
Exhausted, Derek leaned on Chris and let her help him the rest of the way out of the pond. By the time they reached the shore, Drew had already laid Marsha out on the ground and begun chest compressions. “Call nine one one!”
Chris hurried to retrieve her phone and make the call while Derk collapsed to his hands and knees, gasping for breath. Once his breathing was under control, he crawled over to Marsha, and they both worked to resuscitate her while Chris provided directions for the ambulance.
Suddenly, Marsha coughed, sputtering water. “Turn her over,” said Derek as they rolled her onto her side. She vomited up more water and then gasped for air.
“Oh, thank God. She’s breathing,” Chris told the dispatcher, her voice filled with relief.
With the ambulance confirmed, she ended the call and dropped to her knees beside Derek. “They’re on the way,” she told her dad. He barely seemed to hear her, his attention fixed entirely on Marsha as she continued to cough up water and gulp air into her lungs.
Once her breathing evened out, they rolled her onto her back. She looked up at each of them in turn, first at Derek, then at Chris. When her gaze got to Drew, her face crumpled, and she covered it with her hands.
“Hey hey hey,” he said, pulling her into his lap. “It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.” After a hesitant pause he asked, “What the hell was that, Marsha?”
In answer, all she could do was sob. He rocked her, looking helplessly at Chris as he stroked her dripping hair and murmured soothing words over her.
Suddenly overcome with exhaustion, Chris slumped against Derek, unmindful of his wet clothing. He wrapped an arm around her and held her tight, as if grateful she wasn’t the one he’d had to drag out of the pond. Early morning light broke through the trees and birds began to sing as though nothing had happened and everything was normal, merely another day.
And in the distance, a siren wailed.
Chapter Fourteen
Derek handed her a cup of coffee and settled next to her in the row of hard, plastic waiting room chairs. “Careful, it’s hot.” As if to illustrate, he pried the lid off his own coffee and blew on it. “Any news?”
“Not yet.” She held the cup by its cardboard sleeve, not making any move to drink it, reassured simply by the warmth and the feel of something solid to hold onto. At this point, she was so tired she didn’t think drinking it would make a difference. “Dad saw the ghost.”
“Really? He saw a visible manifestation?”
“You almost sound jealous.”
“I kind of am. Man. If I could get something like that on camera—”
“Derek!”
“Under completely different circumstances, of course.” He had the decency to look chagrined. “So how did he take it?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t had a chance to talk about it. He was pretty freaked out at first, but then her crying started to work its spell on him.”
“Thank God you had those earplugs.”
“Thank God you showed up.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
Chris blew on her coffee.
“Hey.” Derek turned in his seat to face her. “Let’s get something straight right now. Do I like that my girlfriend feels it necessary to keep putting herself in harm’s way? Of course I don’t. But don’t you even for a minute think that every time you put yourself in the fire, I won’t be right there with you to watch your back.”
Chris looked at him, tears pricking the back of her eyes. “Yeah, but for how long?”
He brushed her hair out of her face and leaned down to look into her eyes. “For as long as I have to.”
Chris gave him a watery smile. He kissed her on the forehead. “You big dummy,” he added, making her laugh. He put his arm around her and pulled her against him. “You’re exhausted. Why don’t you try to sleep? I’ll wake you when there’s news.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but a yawn came out instead. Giving in, she fidgeted in her chair, trying to find the most comfortable position—or at least the least uncomfortable—before nestling her head against his shoulder. “Thanks. I doubt I can sleep like this, though.”
“Well, rest your eyes, then.” He kissed the top of her head. She closed her eyes.
A moment later, she was shaken awake. She sat up and squinted, only vaguely recalling where she was and why she was there. “Was I asleep?”
“Yep.”
“How long?”
“About half an hour.”
She looked at him and noticed a big spot of drool on his shoulder. She wiped her mouth and then wiped his shirt. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Here comes your dad.”
They stood as he approached, looking haggard and devastated. “Dad, what is it? Is she—”
“She kicked me out.”
Chris blinked in surprise. “What?”
“She asked me to leave.” He shook his head. “She’s okay. Physically, at least. But they’re keeping her for a psych evaluation, and they’ve got her on suicide watch. Suicide watch!” He raked a hand through his hair and started to pace the floor. “And then she told me to get out.”
Derek put a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe she’s too embarrassed to talk to the psychiatrist in front of you.”
“No, you don’t understand. She said the wedding’s off, that we’re through. She said she doesn’t want me around anymore.”
Chris couldn’t stand how hurt he looked, how bewildered and lost. “Dad, we need to talk.”
“You think? What is going on here, Chris? What happened while I was gone?”
“Let’s go home and I’ll explain everything.”
“No. You’ll explain now.”
Derek spoke up. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this here.”
“I’m not leaving. And I’m not waiting another minute to know why my fiancée is calling off the wedding and trying to drown herself in our pond!” His voice rose until he was shouting, drawing looks from other people in the waiting room.
Chris sighed. “All right, Dad. But at least sit down.”
He clearly wanted to keep pacing, but with a groan of frustration, he took a seat. He listened quietly while she brought him up to speed on everything that had happened since he’d left town. She gave it to him straight, sparing no punches. The only parts she left out were Ron and Joe’s involvement. His jaw and his fists remained clenched throughout. At the more fantastical parts, he would glance around the room to see if anyone was listening in. But he kept silent until she was done.
And then he simply sat there, staring at his hands as he flexed them. At last, he gripped his knees and sat up straight, taking a deep breath. He looked at Chris, his face full of anger and disappointment. “I can’t believe you.”
She
blinked. “What?”
“I asked you to do one thing. Be a friend to her. But I leave town for a couple of days and you fill her head so full of your ghost and spirit nonsense that she’s trying to commit suicide!” His voice rose gradually as he spoke until he shouted the last word. Catching himself, he looked around and seemed embarrassed by the looks he’d drawn.
“Now wait a minute,” said Derek. “That’s not what—”
“Excuse me, I’m talking to my daughter.”
“No, you’re being a class A jerk to your daughter. All she’s done is try to help Marsha. And she got herself hurt in the process. Did you even wonder how she got that bruise on her face?”
Drew looked at her. Suddenly self-conscious, she pulled her hair in front of her bruised cheek to hide it. “You were there this morning,” she said, changing the subject. “You saw the ghost that led Marsha into the pond. You heard it. You felt the despair it caused.”
“I don’t know what I saw. I’d been driving all night. I was probably half-delirious with lack of sleep, and more open to suggestion—”
“So, what, she hypnotized you?” Derek snorted. Chris knew why. Her dad was starting to sound like he had after his first encounter with his brother’s ghost.
“I don’t know.” Drew turned back to Chris. “And I don’t know why you’re like this.”
“Like what?”
He sighed wearily and rubbed his eyes. “I suppose it’s my own fault,” he half-muttered. “I should’ve nipped this thing in the bud as soon as it started. I figured it was your way of coping with losing your mother at such a young age.”
“This is not my imagination, Dad.”
“I tried not to indulge it, but I turned a blind eye to it, and I guess that amounts to the same thing.” He gazed down at her, his mouth drawn in a disappointed frown. “But I never thought you would actually harm anyone with your delusions.”
Chris’s mouth dropped open as the bottom dropped out of her stomach. If he’d literally punched her in the gut, she didn’t think it would hurt much worse than this. Speechless, her chest grew tight as she struggled to breathe.
Bound Spirits Page 11
