Old Bones (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  “You still do, Aunt, you still do,” Reg said with a smile.

  Connie smiled and topped off her great aunt’s drink before heading outside with another tray of munchies.

  Chapter Eight

  Charles stared at the chipped, white enamel cup and sniffed at the water. It smelled slightly metallic. Thirst overcame common sense, and he drank greedily from the offered cup. The traveler had released the bindings so Charles could hold it. The water had a well-water tang to it. He, doubting that it was bad, finished the water and set the cup down. “Thank you,” he said.

  Not quite understanding this courtesy, the traveler just nodded.

  “I don’t understand how you have such a good grasp of the language,” Charles said, more for his benefit than to engage the entity. “You’re from a time where we don’t even have a clue as to what tongue you communicated in, and yet you actually talk to me in slang? I admit to being baffled by this.”

  His host stopped pacing the dirt floor and stared at him. “Charles, I am immortal. I live two lives, one in the time of my youth, and one that moves through time. I have seen the rise of the river taking many lives, the fight between people of your skin color, and the devastation of the land by the till and the horse. I have seen the emergence of machines and the hold they have on the people of this area. I move through your world invisible but wary. I learn, I thrive. I am a god.”

  “You keep saying that you are a god, but I have never heard of you,” Charles said, regretting his words as they left his lips.

  The traveler walked swiftly to him and yanked him off the ground by grabbing with one hand around Charles’s fragile neck.

  “You doubt because your eyes refuse to see,” He-who-travels-through-time spat. He shook Charles and tossed him into the corner.

  Charles felt a rib break, the pain shooting through him. He wouldn’t challenge the traveler again anytime soon.

  “Have you brought anything back to your other life?” Charles asked between clenched teeth. He managed to sit up. He probed with his hands and found the broken rib. To his relief, it was just cracked and didn’t threaten his lung.

  “No. Things in your world do not move backward in time. I tried. All I can do is guide my people with the information I gather but…”

  “No one believes you,” Charles finished.

  The look on the man’s face answered him.

  “I’m sorry. What do you want from me?”

  “You have a word in this time that says it all.”

  “And that is?” asked Charles.

  “Validation.”

  ~

  Audrey pulled her car into the parking lot of the church and walked the block to the parish house. After disarming the alarm system, she locked the door behind her, flipped on as many lights as she could find and walked into the study. The mess that greeted her there had her reaching for her cell phone. She started typing in the number for the local police precinct and stopped. The alarm was fine. Nothing seemed to be missing. Could a stack of books topple and cause the mess she saw before her?

  She put away her phone, knelt down and started to retrieve the books. She winced at the bent pages of a first edition she planned on sending on to an auction house. Well, it would still sell but not at the mint condition price. After working for an hour cleaning up and cataloging the books, she found that there were only a few more casualties, and they were books already heading for the jumble sale. Her back ached and her legs cramped from sitting too long. She got up and decided to switch gears and resume her assessment of the upper stories of the home.

  Audrey pulled out her digital voice recorder and clipboard from her briefcase. She smiled as she remembered her afternoon with Stephen Murphy. Once he had found a good radio station, the feeling of contentment filled the car. She smiled and decided not to engage the farmer in conversation. Mia had mentioned that Murphy didn’t like a lot of chatter. Audrey drove back to the farm in companionable silence. She pulled into the drive and the door opened. She thanked the ghost and felt a little sad when it closed. She pulled back out on the street and headed back into the city.

  Ted had shown her a picture he had captured of Murphy in the early days of their acquaintance. He was standing proudly next to Mia. Ted said that Mia kept a copy of the picture on her mantel next to her grandmother’s picture. Murphy had a copy in the barn. Ted had to be a secure fellow to compete with the strange relationship that Mia had with Murphy. Audrey didn’t sense any malice from him. Mia warned her that he wasn’t Casper the Friendly Ghost, but the spirit of man killed in his prime.

  Audrey walked into the hall and headed up the stairs. She couldn’t help but take in the balustrade with the carved birds as she walked. “Giuseppe, you did a beautiful job,” she said out loud. It was a shame, but the pricey carvings would be destroyed in a home filled with tiny hands and teething teeth. She thought the cause far outweighed the loss of the beauty in this home. The birds would find their way into a home where they would be treated for the artwork they were.

  Audrey walked down the hall and entered the room she was working in when Burt found her the day before. It was a bedroom with high corniced ceilings and hardwood flooring. She was pleased to find a built-in raised closet with drawers underneath. She opened each drawer to make sure nothing was left from the previous tenant. Both drawers were empty. She had trouble shutting one of them, so she got down on her knees and pulled it all the way out. Turning it over she saw that the fittings were fine. She placed it back on the runners and tried to close it again. It stopped a few inches from being flush with the other drawer.

  Audrey pulled her tiny mag light from her pocket. She removed the drawer once again and directed the bright light into the space. She had to lie on the floor, but she was able to see that there was an obstruction. It was furry.

  Audrey reeled backwards with one word on her mind. RAT!

  She got to her feet and danced a bit in place. She watched the opening, but no rat appeared. “Is it dead?” She looked around and spied a curtain rod leaning against the outside wall. She grabbed it and separated it into two pieces. One she would use to prod the thing while reserving the other to defend herself if the rat came at her.

  Audrey reluctantly got back down on the floor and inserted the rod into the drawer space. After a few pokes she pulled the rod out and reinserted it so the bent end would act as a hook. She carefully slid the bent end around the object and slowly brought it towards her, scooting backwards as she did, not wanting to be nose to nose with a dead rat. She got to her knees and pulled the rod the rest of the way out.

  Audrey’s mouth dropped open as two twinkling eyes stared up at her. It was a china-faced figurine dressed in a fur coat. “Hello there,” she said as she reached for the doll, “What’s your name?”

  She turned the doll over in her hands, wary of the condition that time would have left the china arms and legs in. The curls on the head of the little girl doll had lost some of their spring, and a button was missing on the coat. “Beaver? My, aren’t we pretentious.” Audrey tapped the coat with her fingers until most of the accumulation of dust left the fur and the rich brown was revealed. She played with the doll for a while, not caring that she was a thirty-some professional and not a ten-year-old girl.

  The sound of her phone drew her out of her childhood, and she set the doll down carefully before answering it.

  “Burt, what a pleasant surprise.”

  “I’m just checking in,” he said lamely. “How did it go today at the hollow?”

  Audrey could hear music in the background and a distant roar of many voices in conversation. “I found the grave. I checked out the other graves, but no other Bassos are buried there.”

  “You didn’t go into the houses?”

  “Nope, Murphy and I stayed in the graveyard.”

  “So how did the old boy behave?”

  “Perfect gentleman. A bit quiet for my liking, but I felt safe knowing he had my back.”

  “Good. I’ll
let Mia know.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “The best anyone can considering that there are over a hundred and fifty people here to wish Ted well. I expect she’d rather be facing down a herd of ghosties with a shotgun chambered with salt than be here.”

  “So would I,” Audrey admitted.

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m back at the parish house. I came here directly from the hollow.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for there?”

  “No, but now I can approach the Basso family, if there are any left, and ask a few questions, like: Why is their great grandfather buried out in Boonesville? If they are aware he’s there, then why haven’t any of them visited him?”

  “Maybe they’re not traditional…”

  “They’re Italian; they invented tradition. Don’t tell me that they don’t visit the graveyard,” Audrey said a bit sharpish. “Burt, sorry, I wasn’t snapping at you. I just think of this genius of an artist lying there with no one to visit him, and it makes me mad.”

  “Mia would say, ‘He’s not there, only his remains.’”

  “Well, Mia’s not a redhead with irrational ideas,” Audrey admitted and calmed down.

  He chuckled before adding, “No comment.”

  “You be that way, coward,” Audrey teased. “Guess what I found behind a drawer under the closet?”

  “Mousetrap?”

  “No, but good guess, thanks for playing. I found a beautiful, very expensive china doll with working eyes, dressed in a beaver coat.”

  Burt whistled. “That’s better than a dead mouse.”

  “Oh yes. I’ll have to have her value assessed and contact the diocese to see what they want done with her. Pity, she and I are becoming good friends.”

  “I’m not too fond of dolls myself,” Burt said, remembering the doll the autistic twins controlled. “Ted still plays with them, but he calls them action figures.”

  “Seems to me Ted has a real live doll now,” Audrey said in a dirty voice, forgetting she was talking to her new boss.

  There was silence, and then Burt said, “Audrey, I have no words.”

  “Sorry about that. I forgot myself.”

  “No, don’t be sorry. It’s nice to know you have more than sunshine and lollypops under that crown of red curls,” he confided.

  “I assure you, Burt, there is much more to Audrey McCarthy than meets the eye.” Audrey quickly changed the subject. “I’m going over to the Basso gallery tomorrow morning to see if I can get some information.”

  “Good, let me know if I can be of any help. We should be heading back in two days. Keep in touch.”

  “I will. Burt.”

  “Yes?”

  “It was great talking to you.”

  “The pleasure was all mine. Bye.”

  Audrey looked at the phone a moment and then at the doll. “That could be my boyfriend if he ever looks my way. But it could be a problem too. I don’t know, what do you think?”

  The doll stared up at her and didn’t offer her any solutions.

  “I guess time will tell. Let me get you secured. I think I remembered seeing a few shoe boxes in the room next door.” Audrey got up and walked out of the room, carrying the doll.

  A gray mist moved slowly out of the space vacated by the drawer. It divided and two small hands appeared and grasped the frame of the closet. Behind them a brown mass of curls emerged. The entity pulled hard and the rest of it squirmed out of the small confining space. It was the spirit of a little girl. Her arms were chubby, and her nightgown-clad body was well fed. She got to her feet and looked around. Where was her doll? It wasn’t in her hidey hole.

  Footsteps in the hall caused the child to take fright. It dissolved into the gray mist again and returned into the recess of the open drawer space.

  Audrey came back into the room. She set the boxed doll down and returned the drawer to its place and was pleased to see it fit. She reassembled the curtain rod and returned it to its place by the window. Audrey left the room, taking the doll with her. She stopped suddenly as she heard a child crying. She assumed it was from outside and continued down the stairs.

  ~

  The feeling of being hunted was never stronger. He moved quickly, never stopping long. Sweat ran down his back, and he ached for something to drink, but he couldn’t take the chance. As long as he was moving, he was safe. He found a dark corner, a place where the moonlight would not give him away. He backed slowly into the corner.

  “I do declare, if it isn’t Mike Dupree,” a female voice came from behind him. A voice that brought back memories of tiled halls, books and academia.

  He turned and faced the shadows and the flash of expensively whitened teeth.

  “Plum Beady,” Mike said, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “How long has it been?”

  “Years and years. I hear from your mama that you’ve moved into that big crowded Chicago. Now what would you need to do a thing like that for when you have all you could need here in Kansas City?”

  “I don’t know: culture, bars, work, the list goes on,” Mike said with his teeth on edge. Here was the same old Plum, content to live in the same house, do the same things, socialize with the same people as they had in high school.

  “Ouch, we have all those things here, sugar.”

  “Plum, it amazes me you haven’t lived in Texas since you were twelve, but yet you haven’t lost your accent,” Mike criticized.

  “Why thank you, sweetie, it takes practice,” Plum said, taking for granted that all things said to the prom queen were compliments.

  “I didn’t know you knew Ted or Mia?”

  “Land sakes, no. I came with Papa and your mama. I heard you were going to be here and invited myself.”

  Mike was sure that wasn’t the end of the story. His mother was up to one of her stunts. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was lurking nearby taking in his discomfort. “Well if you will excuse me, nature calls,” Mike said as he bolted away.

  He thought he heard her heels on the patio behind him. He mouthed, “Help me,” to Ted and Mia as he passed them.

  “Hello!” he heard Mia’s bright cheery voice behind him. “I don’t believe we’ve met yet?”

  He made the bar where he hoped to blend in with the men who were busy fetching drinks for their wives and shooting the bull with Ted’s brother-in-law Kirk.

  “I see she finally caught up with you,” Burt commented as he joined him in line. “Let’s see, it’s coming on ten now. Hey, I win the pot!”

  “What pot? What are you… Don’t tell me my mother’s taking bets on when Plum would get her claws on me.”

  “Yes, indeed. Mia’s going to be put out; she thought you’d last until eleven at least. She had faith in your ability to avoid the woman.”

  “Nice to know my friends care about me,” Mike grumbled. “What possessed my mother to ask Plum Beady to come to this party? I’m surprised she came…”

  “She came with your mother’s date, the general,” Burt informed him.

  “I know my mother, and she only asked the general to put Plum in my way. She’s under the impression that Plum’s a sweet little girl that I jilted in my rush to leave Kansas after high school.”

  “Well, what happened exactly?”

  “I found my steady girl with her legs wrapped around the valet in the backseat of my car at her father’s country club where we had the senior prom.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s a nymphomaniac. I wasn’t her first, probably not her twenty-first either.”

  “Tell me, what makes her different from you?”

  “I at least cultivate a relationship before I drop my drawers. Her excuse for effing the valet was she was ‘taken over by the smell of his cologne.’”

  “Broke your heart.”

  “Yes, she did. She’s probably run through the locals and is looking to move on to the big city. I would just be her ticket to a bigger hunting ground,” Mike s
aid with disgust.

  “Gee, Mike, that could be said of you…”

  “Burt, or should I say, Brutus, who’s side are you on?”

  “Yours. But as your friend, I’m obliged to point out the faults in your argument.”

  “Whatever.” Mike turned around and smiled into the face of Kirk. “Give me something so strong that my eyes will water.”

  “I’ve got just the thing, but I want your car keys first.”

  Mike handed over his keys and smiled as Kirk worked his magic and came up with a Long Island iced tea with a strong tequila base. He poured it into a large red plastic cup and floated a few lime slices on top.

  Mike took a sip and found the delicious blend of flavors too good to be true. He was about to question the strength when the combination of scotch, vodka, tequila and gin hit him. “Whoa, you know your chemistry.”

  Kirk smiled. “I majored in Chem in collage. It was either this or become a pharmacist. The conversations are much better in this line of work, less hemorrhoid talk.”

  Burt asked for a bottle of beer. He thought he’d better keep his wits about him if he was going to keep Mike out of trouble.

  “We better warn Cid,” Mike said suddenly. “That virgin with the Superman face is primed for Plum to pluck.”

  Burt laughed. “Don’t worry, his mind is on his surprise for Mia and Ted. His parents’ place is two blocks over. He’s been working all afternoon on it.”

  A bell rung, drawing everyone’s attention to the patio where Reg and Millie Martin stood with Ted and Mia.

  “If I can have everyone’s attention,” Reg called and waited until the conversations stopped. “I’d like to officially welcome Mia Cooper into the family. May she put up with our hijinks while we overlook her Illinoisan ways. May your marriage be blessed with children and fireworks!”

  Right on cue, the dark sky overhead burst into life as Cid’s homemade pyrotechnics exploded in a multitude of colors and sounds.

  Mia grabbed Ted’s hand, and the two of them oohed and awed with the crowd. Everyone was watching the show except Burt who was watching Mia. He saw a tear of happiness roll down her face. She finally had the family she should have had all along.