Soul Scent: A Zackie Story (The Zackie Stories Book 2)

by Reyna Favis

  “Noooooooo! You don’t understand. I have to save the baby from them.” She began howling in agony, her eyes rolling in her head and arms rigid at her sides, fingers clawing at the earth.

  Cam gripped her other shoulder and was about to speak when Zackie erupted in a low, warning growl. Her message was clear. We needed to stop. Now. This was torturing Maggie. Cam and I clambered to our feet and backed away to give them space. Licking the tears from Maggie’s face, Zackie made soft sounds until gradually, the howling gave way to low moans and Maggie threw her arms around the psychopomp, desperately seeking comfort. Laying her chest on Maggie’s upper body, Zackie continued to sooth her until she was quiet. In slow motion, she placed first one paw and then another on the ground, finally releasing Maggie. Within seconds, Maggie disappeared, leaving us with a feeling of complete desolation.

  “I don’t understand what just happened.” I hung my head and a tear flowed down my cheek. Maggie was in a wretched condition and I was useless. I’d done nothing to help and I might have made things worse. Her grief and despair washed over me again and again, like waves pounding a body until the breath is gone.

  Cam buried his face in his hands, hunching and trying to purge the emotions that trapped Maggie in this place. He took one shuddering breath after another and I realized that even though he was stronger than me, he was drowning too. Maggie’s death state was powerful and bleak and it was dragging us both under.

  Before my knees could buckle, a warm, firm presence pushed at the back of my legs. It turned my body, making me move into the grasping brush that edged the clearing. As I moved deeper into the woods, I glanced over my shoulder and saw Zackie do the same thing with Cam, pushing him along behind me. It wasn’t instant relief, but it did feel better to remove ourselves from Maggie’s domain. I don’t know if taking on some part of her pain relieved her in any way, or if all of this was just a useless by-product of interacting with tormented spirits. Whatever, we walked it off, or at least tried to.

  When we reached the parking lot, I popped my trunk and grabbed two bottles of coconut water. After a run-in with a violent spirit that landed me in the hospital, I found out that our electrolytes can become screwed up in a radical way after an encounter with the dead. A doctor at the hospital recommended coconut water to restore balance and to help fight the debilitating fatigue. I’ve followed his advice ever since.

  Cam pulled down his tailgate to give us a seat and we drank companionably for a spell, unspeaking and still recovering from our time with Maggie. Zackie lay a few yards from the truck, watching the woods and occasionally glancing at us, as if she were making sure we were okay. I thought this must be what sheep felt like.

  Gathering our empties, I threw them in my trunk and took two new bottles before returning to the tailgate. “What do you think she meant when she said she needed to save the baby?”

  Cam accepted the coconut water and focused on twisting the cap before answering. “I’m not sure. She also said she needed to save the baby from ‘them.’ Who would want to harm the baby?”

  I shook my head, unable to answer. Taking a long pull from the bottle, I wiped my mouth on my shirt sleeve. “How does that work, anyway? How can you be dead and pregnant?”

  Cam sipped some of his drink and stared into the woods. “This is an unusual case, for sure. If you think about folktales and ghost stories, you hear about the spirits of mothers who lost their children through accidents or their own misdeeds.” He paused and took a drink before continuing. “They can’t rest because of the traUma and the guilt. You never hear about pregnant ghosts.”

  “Maybe it’s a pseudo-pregnancy? She only thinks she’s still pregnant?”

  Cam shrugged. “Maybe, but if she is pregnant, that makes two spirits that we need to convince to move on.”

  I paused and thought about what this would mean. “Have you ever done a baby before?”

  “Lots of little kids and even a few toddlers, but so far, only one baby.” Cam’s mouth turned down and he sighed softly. “The kids are usually easy. You just let them know they need to find their mum and you send them off with Zackie. They’re generally very trusting.”

  I sensed that he didn’t want to talk about the baby, so he chose to focus on the little kids. Because it might help with Maggie’s case, I needed to understand his experience with the spirit of the infant, even if it was uncomfortable for him. Keeping my voice low and gentle, I brought him back on topic. “Can you tell me about the baby?”

  Cam lifted a shoulder and then stared at the bottle in his hands. “Not much to tell, really. It was 1975 and I was working a job in Kings Worthy.” Glancing at me, he elaborated. “That’s in England. It’s a very old place. It was listed in the Domesday Book – you know, the survey taken in 1066?”

  I bristled a little. “By William the Conqueror after the Norman Conquest. I know. I was a history major, remember?”

  Nodding, Cam took up the story again. “Anyway, I was busy trying to lay the ghost of a Victorian clergyman who had taken up residence in the old church. At the same time, there was an archaeological dig taking place in the churchyard. They were interested in the old Anglo-Saxon burials and they eventually unearthed the skeletal remains of a young woman.” He took another drink and affected nonchalance as he continued the story. “Lying between the long bones of her legs, they found the skull of a full-term infant, but the fetal leg bones were still clearly within her pelvic cavity.”

  “A coffin birth?” My eyes went wide at this thought.

  Cam nodded again. “It happens. A pregnant woman dies and is buried and because of pressure from the gases that build up during decomposition, the dead fetus is expelled from the equally dead mother.” Looking down at his hands again, Cam picked at the label on the bottle. “Anyway, shortly after this find, the cries of a baby could be heard coming from the graveyard. It so disturbed the archaeological team that no one wanted to dig anymore and the work came to a grinding halt.”

  “And did it also disturb you? Cam, I can tell this is difficult to talk about.”

  Cam rolled his eyes and exhaled deeply, his words were clipped. “Yes, right. It bothered me a great deal. The baby was an innocent and completely blameless, yet she was left to suffer horribly for centuries.”

  “But wasn’t the mother with the baby? How did you finally help her to move on?”

  “I went into the churchyard with Zackie late one night to find the baby. The mother was nowhere to be found, so I assume she crossed over shortly after her death.”

  “She left the baby?” My mouth hung open, aghast at the thought of just taking off and leaving an infant.

  “She probably didn’t know the baby remained. In her time, the belief was that unbaptized infants went to Limbo, so in all likelihood, she died assuming that the baby would find its way and be taken care of.” Cam shrugged again. “Who knows? All I know is that earthbound souls of infants are a rarity, so most of the time, they move on with no difficulties. Something went wrong for this one.” Cam frowned as he stared into the middle distance for a beat. “But, you know, as soon as she saw Zackie, she quieted and stopped crying. Getting her to go through the portal was a breeze compared to the clergyman. I had to work another two weeks before the clergyman moved on.”

  I closed my slack jaw with an audible clack. “That’s really counterintuitive. I would have thought that it would be harder persuading a baby to move on because you can’t reason with it.” I took this information as good news. Maggie by herself was proving to be a nearly intractable problem. Adding a reluctant baby to the mix would lower the probability of success even further, but a cooperative baby might help induce the mother to move on. I said as much to Cam.

  Cam nodded as he considered this, but then his eyes drifted and he rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “I hate to burst your bubble, but it might play out in the opposite direction. Maggie might prevent the baby from crossing over due to her belief that she needs to protect it.” Tilting his head back, he closed his
eyes and expelled air through his nose. “We still don’t have enough to go on to figure out how to work with Maggie. I feel like we’re missing something vital.”

  I had to agree, but I felt as stuck as Maggie with this. Swinging my feet, I thought out loud to try to pinpoint the gap in our knowledge. “Whatever is holding her back is so strong that even the promise of seeing her husband again didn’t turn her from her obsession. Talking about the husband and the accident didn’t seem to reach her.” I chugged the last of my coconut water and then held the bottle between my knees with both hands, crunching the plastic a little. “The only fact we’re sure about is the accident. We don’t know if this traUma led to depression and suicide or if she had mental health issues all along. If she had a preexisting problem, this could be why they waited to have a kid.”

  Cam grabbed the bottle from me to stop the crunching noise. “We don’t know the results of the autopsy either. What if this is a murder and that’s why she feels compelled to protect the baby? She could be constantly churning through her last thoughts before she was murdered.”

  I slanted my eyes toward Cam. “It could happen that we’ll never get at the truth of the matter. What if we picked one of the scenarios and tried to work it out with Maggie based on that assumption?”

  Cam grimaced. “It would be better to take a little time and try harder to understand what happened. Moving forward with Maggie based on the most probable scenarios is like a doctor treating a patient without doing any diagnostics. It’s not likely the patient will be cured and a very real possibility that harm could be done.”

  I flinched as he said this, having a sudden and vivid flashback of Maggie’s suffering on our last effort. We were coming at this all wrong and our actions were harming her. I grunted my agreement with Cam’s assessment, took my bottle back and went back to crunching the plastic. “I guess we wait on Jill. She said she’d let me know what happened with the autopsy.”

  It was Cam’s turn to grunt agreement. “We need some downtime from Maggie, in any event. The coconut water only goes so far. We have to recharge what she’s taken from us or we’re no good to her.”

  I sighed and nodded. My battery felt drained and another encounter with Maggie too soon could cause me real damage. Neither of us was satisfied with moving so slowly and allowing Maggie’s suffering to continue, but things would only get worse if our intervention was not up to the job. We didn’t have much of a choice here.

  # # #

  Ron Falling-Leaf’s grandmother was like a kitten. She looked soft and cuddly, but in reality, she was all claws and teeth. She wasn’t his biological grandmother, but when his white family sent him to Oklahoma for psychiatric treatment, Lenora Ottertooth took Ron into her home and under her wing.

  “You still chasing my grandson, little girl?” Lenora’s voice sounded raspy over the phone, but the years had not diminished the force of her personality. She was still imperious, drawing a line in the sand and daring me to step over it. If she weren’t my last resort to reach Ron, I would never have subjected myself to this conversation.

  I was sweating and nauseous as I paced around the apartment, one hand gripping the phone, the other holding my belly. “Lenora, it’s not like that. It’s never been like that.” She had high hopes that Ron would marry within the tribe and in her mind, my very existence threatened this possibility. I started to wonder if she might have been the reason Ron and I lost touch. My stomach curdled at the thought of speaking to Ron again. All my memories of him were bound up with bad memories of the drugs and the psychiatrists.

  “Then what’s it like, little girl? Why’re you bothering me?”

  I stopped in my tracks and my words only shook a little as I struggled to keep my voice even. “I need to get in touch with Ron. I need his help. Would you please just tell him that I called?”

  “You find someone else to help you. Ron don’t need none of your interference in his life. When you around, kpëchehòsu.”

  “He acts crazy? What’s that supposed to mean? I had nothing to do with the problems he had with his family.”

  Lenora inhaled sharply. “How you know our language, little girl?”

  Oh crap. I should have been more careful, but that old woman drove me to distraction. Shoving my bangs out of my face, I started pacing again, holding the phone in a death grip. I needed to divert her attention. “That’s not important. What is important is that a tribal man needs his help.”

  There was a short silence and I could almost hear Lenora’s brain clicking as she balanced her dislike for me against the needs of a tribal member. “Well, that’s different. You say you need his help and I don’t care. You say a tribal man’s in trouble, I do care. I go get Ron.” With that, the phone clattered on a surface and I was left to wait. I put my back to a wall and let my feet slide out in front of me. After a few minutes, I transferred the phone to my other hand and shook out the tightness from gripping it so hard.

  “Fia, is that you?” Ron was breathing hard, sounding like he had run a mile to get to the phone.

  I hunched forward and closed my eyes. “Yeah, it’s me. Is Lenora with you, listening in?”

  “Nah, I left her in the pasture with the herd. She can’t keep up with me when I run.”

  Swallowing hard, I tried for small talk. “How are you doing, Ron?”

  “Good…I’m good.” There was a pause and I could hear him breathing. “You still crazy?”

  I was sure that he was only half joking, but I cracked a grin and opened my eyes. “Maybe a little. How about you? Still sucker punching everyone in sight?”

  A rumbling chuckle made its way over the connection. “Once in a while, just for old times’ sake.” We suffered a moment of uncomfortable silence and then Ron got to the point. “So, why’d you call? Uma said something about a tribal man in trouble.”

  “Yeah, something like that.” I pinched the bridge of my nose with my free hand. The explanation was not going to be easy, despite the fact that Ron and I had history. A lot of time had gone by and maybe he had stopped believing that my experiences had any foundation in reality. Clearing my throat, I forged on. “Remember how I used to get the crap beaten out of me on a regular basis?”

  Ron was quiet for a moment. When he responded, his voice was softer. “Yeah, I remember.” He didn’t automatically launch into something revisionist to explain the beatings and I took this as a good sign, a sign of still accepting the existence of the unseen world. Ron expelled a breath into the phone and then spoke louder, almost angry. “That still happening?”

  “Not so much anymore. I met this older guy, Cam, and he sees them too.” My voice brightened as I went on. “Ron, he knows how to make them move on and he’s been teaching me.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Fia. There were times I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”

  “You and me both.” I gave a shaky laugh. “So, this tribal man…He’s one of them. He’s mad as hell and he’s refusing to communicate with us.”

  Ron sighed. “I’m not sure how I can help. You know I can’t sense them that well.”

  “You might be able to understand his rage. I think he threatened us when we first met him.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, I’m not a hundred percent sure, but he was straight-up scary. He spoke in some native dialect and I couldn’t force the meaning out of his words, but he was kind of yelling at us. I heard…” Pausing, I closed my eyes and tapped my forehead with my fingertips as I tried to recall exactly the sounds of his words. With my eyes still closed, I repeated the words phonetically as best as I could. “I heard him say ‘Oh wen hech key’ and then he said ‘Aah poo hech awen kay skaerl ah niche sheet.’”

  Ron mumbled the phrases to himself. “Huh, that’s the Southern Unami Dialect. Your dude is Lenape. Fia, where are you calling from? Where did this happen?”

  “I’m in New Jersey, why?”

  “Oh, okay. It makes sense then.” Ron chuckled. “Look at me, sayin
g any of this makes sense… Anyway, the Lenape people are from New Jersey.”

  “I thought you were Lenape.” My brow knit as I tried to puzzle out what happened to Ron. “Why’d they send you all the way to Oklahoma if your tribe is in New Jersey?”

  “It’s a long, long story, but some of the tribe ended up in Oklahoma in the 1860’s. And let me tell you, my people did not take the direct route.” Ron’s voice grew louder and angrier as he explained, but then he blew out a breath. “Sorry, old wounds.” After a pause, he continued. “At any rate, this guy did not threaten you. Awèn hèch ki means ‘Who are you?’ and Ahpu hèch awèn kèski alënixsit means ‘Does anyone here speak Lenape?’”

  “Good to know.” I let his words sink in for a moment. Maybe this Lenape spirit would not try to kill us. “Ron, when can you come to New Jersey?” He started hemming and hawing, so before he could develop any real conviction, I interrupted. “Before you say you can’t, you need to understand that this guy is going to stay stuck if you don’t come. He’s suffering, Ron, and it’s been going on for a really long time. Cam and I can’t even talk to him and that’s half the battle in helping the dead to move on.”

  Ron blew out an exasperated breath and started grumbling. “You know, some things just never change - you’re still really bossy.” When he began thinking out loud, I thought I had him. “Let’s see…I can get a friend to help Uma with the cattle and goats. If I do laundry tonight… Two days? Maybe three? But that’s only if all the stars align. I can’t promise you anything.”

  Something was better than nothing. At least he was willing. Rather than keep pushing and possibly turn him off with my demands, my mind skittered to another topic and I started babbling, trying to keep the conversation going. “You have goats?” My hand began crushing the phone again as I remembered a previous case where we needed help and called in reinforcements who also kept goats. I now had a bad association with goats thanks to that case.