by Reyna Favis
Lenora leaned towards him and rapped her knuckles on the table. “I take care of pregnant women before, during and after their births. Maggie’s gonna need me no matter what happens.” She sat back and crossed her arms, case closed, ignoring the deeper questions of life and death and everything beyond these borders. Lucas opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then thought better of it and stayed silent, placing a crooked finger over his lips.
I took up his question because I felt his misgivings were valid and I didn’t want him to feel like his opinions on this case were being ignored. “We don’t know, Lucas. We’ll try to figure it out on the fly and just respond to things as they come up. That’s the best we can do.” He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t find this satisfying.
After a moment, Lenora murmured, “How about a horse? I could ride in.” This little old lady was tough in ways we hadn’t considered.
Ron lit up and looked like this could solve the problem. “Uma was a trick rider on the rodeo circuit when she was a girl. She’s good on a horse.”
“No, won’t work.” Cam frowned and shook his head. “It’s too dense and there are lots of low hanging branches. You could barely walk a horse through that, let alone ride.” Tapping on his chin with a finger, his eyes shifted left and then right as he thought through the dilemma. “How about giving us remote support? We have radios we use for search and rescue. We could keep in contact and you could tell us what to do to help Maggie.”
Lenora cocked her head and pursed her lips. “Might work. Better if I’m there, but… ” She shrugged, accepting the limitations of what could be done.
“Okay, here’s another thing that’s bothering me.” Lucas was flipping through his notes again. “He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief said the black-eyed kids scattered when he approached. Have either of you ever seen or sensed these presences?” His eyes flitted back and forth between Cam and me. When we both responded ‘no’ simultaneously, he continued with his line of questions. “So, what’s going to keep them from running off this time? If they’re dangerous, they can’t be allowed to keep doing what they’re doing.”
“We could send Zackie ahead,” I blurted, thinking of sending her zipping through the portal, emerging at Maggie’s clearing and surprising whoever might be there.
Lucas cocked his head. “How are you going to do that?”
When I stammered uselessly, trying to come up with something plausible, Cam picked up the question and prevaricated brilliantly. “Well, she’s a trained search dog, right? You know that Astro collar we used to locate her when she ran through the woods after He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief? She’s trained to follow stimuli transmitted from the handheld to the collar. We use that to direct her to specific coordinates. She gets another signal from the collar to let her know where to stop and wait for us.” Zackie let him finish his explanation before having a sneezing fit under the table. I got the feeling she thought this was funny. Cam must have thought this was ill-timed, because he gave her a nudge with his foot to get her to stop.
Lucas continued with his perfectly reasonable questions that I didn’t want to answer. “Okay, that should work. But what’s she going to do when she gets there? How does having her in the clearing affect anything the black-eyed kids might do?”
Cam chewed his lip and tried to come up with another whopper. “Dogs have a way of sensing these psychic disturbances and, er – ”
“The spirits will respect the dog.” Lenora interrupted, not realizing what a keen sense of timing she had. “Dog tells them to stay, they’ll stay, or the dog won’t let them cross the bridge to the afterlife.”
Lucas stared at her for a moment, unblinking. Mind blown. We had reached his limit.
“Look,” Cam said. “If the black-eyed kids are there when we arrive, we deal with them first. They’re the real danger to life and limb. If they’re not there, we do what we have to for Maggie to get her to cross over.” Cam tilted his head and tried to catch Lucas’s eye. “And you can film anything you want for the black-eyed kids, but we’ve agreed that Maggie’s off limits because it would upset the family. Does that sound right to you?”
Brought back to the present by the mention of his ghost show, Lucas finally responded. “Yes, that sounds reasonable.” Catching himself, he rolled his eyes and muttered, “And now they’ve got me saying this sounds reasonable, as if none of this defies reason.”
# # #
The windshield wipers slapped away the streaks of rain as I headed home. The group had decided to go to Maggie’s clearing first thing in the morning and I needed my beauty sleep if I was going to be ready for this. It was a short drive and after parking, I hustled through the rain with my key at the ready, already groggy and wanting nothing more than to just lie down and close my eyes.
I poked at the area around the lock a few times before getting it right, clumsy with the need to sleep. A quick turn of the key and I pushed through the door and got out of the rain, realizing that while the place had been aired out and no longer reeked of spoiled milk, I had forgotten to shut the windows when I left and there were likely some wet spots I’d need to clean up before I could sleep. I fumbled around the wall for the light switch until it flicked on to reveal a folded piece of paper on the ground, just at the threshold. It was a note from Joel, my landlord, telling me to knock on his door when I got home and not to wait until morning, even if the hour was late when I arrived. Despite this open invitation, I pulled my phone out to check the time – it was late – and then realized that the windows were closed. Upon closer inspection, not only were they closed, they were locked. Still grasping the note, I went outside again and walked quickly through the rain to Joel’s door. I was no longer sleepy, my adrenaline was pumping and I was on high alert.
Before I could knock, I heard the deep barks of Heckle and Jeckle on the other side of the door and Joel telling them knock it off. The door opened and Joel stood there in a ratty, navy terry cloth robe, holding a mug. “Come on in.”
I stepped in and wiped my feet on his welcome mat. “What’s up, Joel? Why’d you leave me the note?” The dogs snuffled at me, wagging their tails and whacking my thighs hard when they turned around to let Joel know they were delighted to see me.
“Come on over to the couch. I just made cocoa. I’ll get you a mug.”
I sat stiffly on his couch, knowing he wouldn’t take no for an answer and petted the dogs while I waited for the cocoa. Once he handed me the mug, he sat down in the big reclining chair facing the couch and began talking. “So, the dogs suddenly started barking like crazy a few hours ago. It wasn’t the normal bark either. You know them, they’re a bunch of knuckleheads, wouldn’t hurt a fly. This was a ‘I’m going to tear your throat out’ kind of bark.”
I took a sip of cocoa and rubbed my upper lip to clean off the clinging froth. “What were they barking at?”
“That’s what I said. So, I opened the door to take a look around. It was just getting dark, but I see this guy over at your place, messing with a window. The dogs, they just pushed passed me and took off like they had no manners, barking like hell hounds. The guy musta heard them coming and he took off running. They chased him into the woods and I thought they’d bring me back a bloody carcass, but then I hear a car door slam and the guy gunned the engine and peeled outta here.” Joel chewed on his lip. “He musta parked on the street and then come through the woods to your place. It was too dark to see what kinda car. I called the cops, of course, but I didn’t have much to tell them, other than some guy trying to break into your place.”
“Could you tell what he looked like?” I felt cold and then hot. My dead hand clenched hard. I put the mug down on the coffee table, so I could put my good hand on top of it to keep it still.
Joel shook his head and scratched at his beard. “I dunno. Like I said, it was dark. I could tell it was a guy cause of how it moved, and kind of average height, but that’s about it.” He drank some cocoa and his brow furrowed. “So, I went into your place to
lock the windows after the cops left. Hope that was okay with you.”
I nodded absently. “Yeah, thanks for doing that.”
“Probably just trying to steal stuff, but lock your door and your windows from now on. He probably won’t be back, now he knows about the dogs, but you never know.”
I told him I’d be careful and thanked him for waiting up to tell me what happened. He held the door open for me as I left and stood watching on his threshold until I had made it safely to my place and closed the door. I turned all the locks on the door and then double checked the windows to make sure they were secure. The floors were dry, so everything must have happened before the storm broke and I didn’t need to clean up any puddles.
With nothing left to do, I grabbed my largest kitchen knife and went to my bedroom. I put the knife on my nightstand, got out of my clothes and into some comfortable pajamas. I picked up the sleeping glove and then decided against it, leaving the dead hand exposed and within easy reach of the knife.
# # #
The parking lot at Worthington State Forest was empty aside from Cam’s white pickup truck and Lucas’s car, a red Nissan. I pulled in and updated everyone on the prior night’s events. I had slept well, secure with the idea that the dead hand was on guard duty and ready to respond if needed. As it turned out, it wasn’t needed and the night had passed uneventfully. Despite a restful night’s sleep, I was jumpy, my senses tracking any small movements or sounds in the woods. I had no proof, but my gut told me that Rory was behind the break-in attempt. I didn’t voice this suspicion, but everyone else immediately leapt to the same conclusion.
“Can you get a restraining order?” Cam sat on the tailgate, fiddling with the Astro collar.
I bit my lip and considered the idea before shaking my head. “I kind of doubt it. I don’t have any proof of anything.”
“Maybe I should go pay this guy a visit. Just have a little conversation until he sees things from my perspective.” Ron casually leaned his shoulder against Cam’s truck, but his eyes were flat, black and cold.
Lucas grinned without humor. “I like your thinking, but even if we pooled all our money, I don’t think we’d be able to scrape together enough for bail after your little social call.” Turning his attention to me, he said, “Maybe you should stay with Cam again.”
When Cam started nodding, I shook my head. “I just moved out…And seriously, for how long would we be doing this? And based only on a suspicion?” Lucas opened his mouth to say something else, but I made a slashing motion and nixed the idea before he could get a word out. “No. I am not staying with you either.” It was way too soon for that and I didn’t want to jinx the relationship. Besides, hiding the dead hand would become a huge issue in such close proximity.
Lenora looked at me with respect, and I almost laughed out loud when I realized she thought I had made this decision to safeguard my virtue. “Good girl. How ‘bout you get a gun or a dog. Maybe get both.”
The gun was probably an idea to save as a last resort, given my PTSD and a propensity to have a hair trigger when I got hepped up. Joel would get upset if I shot a bunch of holes through my walls.
Before I could voice this concern, Cam spoke up. “The dog is a good idea. It was Joel’s dogs, after all, that stopped the break in. You should have Zackie at your place.”
I wanted to argue, just because I had gotten into the habit of naysaying, but given the other possibilities for security and the fact that I did feel vulnerable, this was the least of all evils. Zackie had stayed at my place before when Cam had been in the hospital with a badly broken arm and nothing terrible happened. Maybe this would work and it wasn’t forever, just until – until what? Until I felt secure again? More likely, until we got on each other’s nerves.
I stopped trying to map out all the possibilities when Cam called Zackie over and buckled the Astro collar around her neck. The mission was starting and needed to get my head in the game. While Zackie took off into the woods, Cam made a show of fiddling with the handheld device and I popped my trunk. Reaching in, I grabbed my multi-tool and hung it on my belt. Next, I found two radios and programmed each with the frequency we would use. I handed one to Ron and we did a quick radio check, making sure each of us could transmit and receive. Satisfied that the radios were working, I stuck my unit in the leg pocket of my cargo pants and then rummaged through the trunk again to find some prophylactic coconut water. I handed a bottle to Cam and then chugged down the contents of my bottle. While we waited for Zackie to get in position, I put on eye protection, gloves and then a baseball cap to cover my hair. In reality, Zackie could appear in the clearing nearly instantaneously, but for the sake of the other observers, we needed to make it look like she was running through the woods to get there.
After a few minutes, Cam indicated that Zackie had reached the clearing. I felt like I ought to gear up, as if this were a SAR mission, but what could I bring that would be of any use? As a last minute precaution, I put another bottle of coconut water in my other pants leg pocket and threw one to Cam, who did likewise.
“Wait,” Lenora said. Reaching into my trunk, she pulled out a twenty foot length of purple tubular webbing that I used for tying a Swiss seat harness so I could clip to a rope. “Take this.” Without asking why, I grabbed it and daisy chained the length before finding a carabiner in the trunk to attach it to my belt loop.
We hit the trail, with Lucas following, and then cut into the woods when we found a branch tagged with our flagging tape. Cam had outfitted Lucas with spare equipment, so he was able to move through the thicker woods at a good pace. While capturing some of our trek with a handheld video camera, Lucas became tangled in briars. I grabbed my multi-tool and cut him out, watching with sympathy as tiny splotches of blood formed on his shirt from the thorns. Those little wounds would hurt later.
“Be careful to follow Cam’s path, or you’ll get caught in another briar patch,” I cautioned him.
We set off again and soon reached the clearing. As we broke through the brush, the sound of Zackie growling brought us to an abrupt stop. The sound roared, echoing and reverberating through me, making my eyes tear and my breast bone vibrate. Yellowed leaves rained down from trees and brush that circled the clearing and the air was freezing. My ears clenched with pain and my hands jerked up to cover them. I ground my teeth and locked my knees, so that I would resist running from this terrible onslaught to my senses.
Maggie sat on the edge of the clearing, her knees up and her arms protectively circling her belly. She stared with a horrified concentration towards the middle of the clearing, where three children clustered together, two boys and a girl. Panic etched their faces and when one or another tried to break and run, Zackie proved too fast for them. A reddish blur, she sped to where the child took a step and they would immediately retract the offending foot. If they were a micro-second slow in withdrawing, she slashed with her teeth at their ankles and they wailed in fear.
“What’s going on? Why’s she running circles?” Lucas trained the handheld on Zackie to record her frenetic movement.
I stood rooted, afraid to do anything to distract the psychopomp. “She’s got the black-eyed children trapped. I’m not sure where we go from here. Cam, what’s next? What do we do?”
“Remember when we talked about moving children on? How they’re very trusting and you just have to tell them to find their mum and they’re off? Well, none of that applies here.”
Something clicked in my brain. “Because they’re like that Irish boy hostage and they’ve lost all trust?”
“Exactly. It’s good to know my lessons aren’t going to waste.” Under the strain, Cam looked pleased with me. “Something happened to these kids during their lives and deaths, something that robbed them of their innocence. Because they are unable to trust, it’s hard to have the conversation necessary to convince them to move on.”
“So, how did your granny convince the Irish boy?” I asked.
Cam frowned, his brows creasing. �
��I’ve told you. Her talent was influencing spirits.”
My brain gave another click. “Ohhhh, I thought you meant that she was just a persuasive person, that she knew how to say just the right thing and make a connection.”
“She did do that with spirits, but there was an undercurrent of power that they could rarely resist, especially if she’d hit on the reason for them remaining earthbound.”
“Too bad your granny’s not here right now.” Lucas spoke softly, keeping the camera focused on Zackie as she lay down facing the kids, daring them to make another move.
Cam sighed. “There’s nothing for it. Let’s go and talk to these kids.”
We walked the short distance from the periphery of the clearing and stopped just behind Zackie. The children were very pale and painfully thin. Their clothing was tatty and stained, the boys in short pants and suspenders with slouching caps perched on their heads. The girl wore her hair in braids and a too-big gingham dress hung loosely on her frame, coming just past her knees. They were barefoot, their legs also bare and their feet dirty. The children’s eyes were dark pits, but instead of malevolence, they radiated despair.
Cam studied the children and then dipped his head towards the psychopomp. “I don’t suppose you’d consider going with Zackie, here.”
“Give us the baby. We’re bored,” the older boy said.
The other boy chimed in. “Yes, give us the baby, a new little sister.”
“We’re lonely. All we want is the baby. Then we’ll go.” The girl whispered the words and then reached toward Maggie, eliciting a warning growl from Zackie.
“You’re not getting the baby.” Cam’s mouth formed a grim line. He waited until the children quieted down before continuing. “Tell me how you died.”
