by Catie Rhodes
“I will.” We said our goodbyes and hung up.
Rainey stood in the door separating the kitchen from the dining area. “That what I think it was?”
I slumped.
“Oh, hell, Peri Jean. Don’t act like I kicked you.” She came into the kitchen and faced me. “I think it’s the right move for you.” She set about cooking her dog an actual meal on the stove.
I sent Wade Hill a text message.
He wrote back immediately. “Meet me at our former residence in an hour.”
I told Rainey. She handed me the keys to her extra car and went back to pampering her dog.
An hour later, Wade and I stood in front of the burned out wreck of Memaw’s house. Parts of it still smoldered. Nothing was left of the house other than a pile of charred wood, some broken glass, and a lot of beat-up memories. My poor Nova was nothing more than a twisted pile of blackened metal. The stench of smoke hung over everything, heavy and ugly like a funeral dress that didn’t quite fit.
“I’m sorry your things got burned up,” I told him. Wade had even less than I did. Now it was gone.
“They’re just things.” Wade put his arm over my shoulders. “I’ll get more.”
“Mysti asked me to move to the Houston area to work for her and Griff.” I leaned into his side, already missing the comfort of him.
“I know.” Wade turned to face me. “She called and said she was going to. You gonna do it?” He stared hard at me.
“I think I should.”
“I agree.” He turned his gaze on the barn, eyes shiny.
I’d stay if you asked, I wanted to say but didn’t. The memory of the way his lips felt on mine, of the urgency burning in his eyes, still held sway over my emotions. Wade had wanted me just as much as I wanted him. I watched the thoughts move across his face. He started to speak several times but closed his mouth each time. Finally, he blew out a hard breath and nodded.
“How about if I come visit you sometime? Would that be okay?”
“More than.” Knowing Wade’s reasons for not wanting to get involved with me, I couldn’t say more. We slid into each other’s arms. He gave me the kind of squeeze that made my sore shoulders cry for mercy. I stared at the edge of the woods. My daddy’s ghost came from between the trees to watch me. He lifted one hand to wave but faded before I had time to react.
“I need to ask you a favor.” I let go of Wade. He shrugged and nodded. “I want to find Priscilla Herrera’s—and my—family.” The words felt like a commitment. I guessed they were. “Before my father was murdered, he planned for the two of us to go live with them. If I’m going to learn to be who I really am—”
“You need them just as much as you need Mysti.” Wade glanced at the woods where my daddy had been. “I’m willing, but I don’t know what to do.”
“Make Rainey help you. She has all sorts of resources.” Including my uncle. He and Rainey had some kind of weird thing going. More than friendship. Definitely inappropriate, given both their stations in life.
“I won’t tell you no, but consider one thing.” Wade stared down at me. “Once you find them, you can’t un-find them.”
“But if I don’t try, I’ll never know.” I gripped Wade’s arms in my hands. “I’m tired of not knowing.”
Wade nodded his understanding. Not too long after, he got a call from one of the Six Guns demanding his presence wherever they were partying. He kissed my cheek, got on his motorcycle, and rode away without saying goodbye. Like he was just going to the convenience store to get some ice cream, as though he’d be back soon. What the hell? I could always pretend.
I stood for a long time contemplating the ashes of my life, smelling its death in the pall of smoke hanging in the air. The future rushed at me faster than I wanted it to come. It held so many uncertainties, so much potential pain. Loss threatened on the horizon of every possibility. But I had no choice other than to face the road in front of me head on. It would take me where it took me, but I would never let it whip me without a fight.
EPILOGUE
Two Months Later
The fax came into Griff’s office at almost quitting time on a Friday afternoon. Griff stopped packing up the files he planned to make us work on all weekend and pulled it out of the tray. He frowned.
“Think this one’s for you, Peri Jean.” He pushed the paper at me. “Don’t forget to grab those background checks for the haunted house people.”
I barely heard him. The fax consumed the whole of my attention. Rainey Bruce’s office number was at the top. In her perfect handwriting was one sentence. “This might be them.”
The page was a flyer advertising a carnival. It featured a grainy graphic of a smiling kid with a buzz cut smiling in front of a Ferris wheel.
TWO NIGHTS ONLY
IN
LIVINGSTON, TEXAS
THREE STARS CARNIVAL
AN OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY EXPERIENCE
GAMES, RIDES, AND FOOD
Tonight was the last night. I had to go, had to see if they were there.
My cellphone rang. The caller ID said Rainey Bruce. I accepted the call. “Yes?”
“You got my fax?” Rainey’s rapid-fire words rattled over the speaker.
“I’m holding it in my hand right now. Thanks for—”
“Good. Reason I called was I had something private to tell you, something I didn’t want just anybody to read.” A thud, thud, thud came over the line. After a few seconds, I realized she was walking on her treadmill. The cooler December temperatures and early sunsets must have forced her exercise routine indoors.
“All right.” Maybe Rainey had some inside dirt on my family, some reason I hadn’t been able to catch up with them.
“The reason the letters you’ve sent to Hannah at her private hospital came back unopened is that she is refusing all mail.” Thud, thud, thud. Rainey walked on and on, the road to nowhere not discouraging to her at all.
Upon her release from the hospital in Gaslight City, Hannah checked herself into a private hospital specializing in helping rape trauma victims. We hadn’t spoken since. Her absence was like a pit in the middle of me, one filled with guilt and remorse.
“Peri Jean?” Rainey’s voice sharpened with irritation. “You hear what I said?”
“Yes. Thanks for finding out.” I swallowed hard.
“You’re welcome.” The thuds ended and the sound of a motor cutting off came over the line. “I know you’re going to look for your memaw’s family tonight. Be careful, okay?”
“I will.” I said my goodbyes and hung up. Did I still want to go looking for them? The news about Hannah had taken away the glee I’d first felt when I saw the flyer. I read it over again. A little glimmer of excitement came back. Yeah, I’ll go.
“Hey, Mysti?” I walked through the office suite, exchanging sour faces with Brad Whitebyrd as I passed his office. “Mysti?”
“In the break room,” she called.
I hoofed it back there and found her cleaning spilled coffee grounds off the counter.
“Brad did this. Make him clean it up.” I set the flyer down on the table, grabbed the dustpan, and started sweeping loose grounds into it. My admonishment was just that. Mysti’s urge to protect her brother went beyond the call of duty, and he was an adult spoiled brat because of it.
“I second the vote for making Bradley clean up his own messes.” Griff raised his voice loud enough for it to echo through the office suite. Brad didn’t answer. Griff picked up the flyer and read it. “I take it you’re going searching again?”
Mysti stopped cleaning and took the flyer out of Griff’s hand. “What if you never find your grandmother’s family? What if they don’t want to be found?” Her soft, sweet voice verbalized my greatest fears.
“If I don’t try, I’ll always wonder.” I held out my hand for the flyer, and she gave it willingly enough.
“You didn’t ask for my advice, but I’m going to give it anyway.” She dumped the coffee grounds in the trash can. “Why don’t you just se
ttle in here? Make friends besides me, Brad, and Griff. It won’t feel so off-kilter then.”
I doubted it but didn’t feel like arguing, so I just grunted in answer.
“I worry about you, wandering these country roads after dark. What if some highway men waylay you?” She laughed, but I could tell it was forced.
“Nobody’s gunning for me. Michael Gage is dead. What’s left of the money from the Mace Treasure is in my bank account.”
Mysti sighed in defeat. “Call if you aren’t going to make it home before morning.”
I nodded and pulled her into a hug. “I couldn’t have gotten through these last few weeks without you, Griff, and Brad. You guys are my family by choice. I couldn’t ask for better.” I swallowed hard. “This thing with Memaw’s family, it’s something I dream about at night. Finding them, I mean. I’m not going to disappear with them. I just want the chance to know them.”
“And, by knowing them, you hope to know yourself better. Believe me, I understand.” She paused, silent for so long, I thought she was finished with me. “Just remember nothing is ever simple or one-sided.”
Griff walked me out to my car and insisted on checking the air pressure in the tires. I let him because he liked feeling useful. But I could have done it myself.
I drove the sixty miles north from The Woodlands to Livingston, Texas. I almost wept when the pine trees started to crowd the sides of the road after I passed through Shepherd. I missed the dense, secretive piney woods. I missed home. But none of us can ever go back home. Home changes, where it is, who’s there waiting. Finding the right place, the next home, is a challenge we face over and over again throughout life.
The carnival was a few miles south of town, off an asphalt county road in what looked like some farmer’s field. I parked in the dirt, locked up, and started walking, the smell of funnel cakes and corn dogs permeating my senses. Smiling people pushed past me, the kids chattering and running. The weird, spooky calliope music made the whole thing seem eerie.
Over the weeks I’d been coming to these little roadside carnivals, I’d had plenty of time to think. The concept of these events must have been ancient, dating back to earliest times. It was a place where people who didn’t have much else to do went to see something new, something unusual, perhaps even something mystical. It was just the place for my relatives, a place they could hide just below the sightline of the normals.
No matter how hard I searched, it seemed I traveled a step behind them. In late November, I found their trail in Saratoga, Texas. The carnival owner told me they packed up in the middle of the night and left with no explanation. A midway barker in Many, Louisiana told me they’d only contracted one week with him, and I’d missed them. Maybe Mysti was right. Maybe they didn’t want me to find them. Too bad. I wasn’t going to quit until one of them physically slammed the door in my face.
I turned a corner and looked out on the crowded midway. The night was just getting busy. I scanned the booths, peering into each one as I passed even though I knew the band of travelers who shared my blood wouldn’t be out in the open. They’d be hidden on some back alley, probably giving illegal tattoos along with their tarot readings and their séances. They knew about staying under the radar, about moving in the dark shadows. They’d learned it over the course of many generations. I cut behind some rides, and a worker scowled at me. I almost stopped and asked him if he knew anyone named Gregsikan, Gregg, Gregson, Gregory, Goya—any of the names Rainey figured out they’d once used—but I didn’t want to know I’d failed again so early in the night.
After the third circuit of the carnival, I figured I’d missed again and started looking for something to eat. I stood in front of a corn dog stand waiting my turn. The black opal sent a little electric shock into my chest. I turned and spotted a familiar male form, one with short black hair and broad shoulders. Other carnival patrons passed right through him, not even sensing him. I walked toward the ghost, smiling as my daddy’s features came into focus. The ghost motioned me to follow him. We walked past a row of games I’d traveled several times and turned down a back alley I’d somehow missed.
This was the right place. My father’s ghost and I passed a freak tent, which sat alongside a tent proclaiming “High Stakes Cards Here.” Another tent had no words but showed a voluptuous woman dressed in nothing but a gauzy sheet. No barkers called here. It was best the majority of the carnival’s patrons didn’t know about this spot, hidden here, surrounded by the backsides of Pitch ’Til U Win booths and cheesy rides.
The slim man walked out of a tent emblazoned with a deck of tarot cards and stood peering around, frowning, his hands on his hips. It had been better than a decade since we last met, but I knew my cousin Finn.
“Finn!” I waved. My body clenched in anticipation of him running. Would I chase him or just let it go? Luckily, he didn’t run. He grinned and rushed toward me. We met in the middle of this hidden midway, the one away from the real midway, and embraced. He broke the hug and tugged my arm.
“Come on. Jadine just knew you’d catch up here. She insisted we take this gig even though we’ve usually quit for the winter by this time.” He pulled me harder, nearly dragging me toward the tarot card tent. I glanced back to see my father’s ghost following. He waved his hand for me to go on.
Women dressed as TV gypsies with their hair pulled back in wide scarves glanced up from their card readings as we passed. Several of them smiled. A few watched with an air of polite disinterest. Finn dragged me through a flap, just like the one where he convinced me to let a ghost tattoo me years and years ago. An old man sat at a folding card table, a Kindle e-reader in front of him.
“What’s happened now, Finn?” He had the same lilting country accent as Memaw’s. His small stature matched hers, all the way down to the shape of his fingernails, which were like mine too. My great-uncle Cecil raised his head and stared at me uncomprehendingly for several long seconds. Then he sucked in a deep breath and stood.
“Oh my God, it’s Leticia’s granddaughter.” He held out his thin arms to me and pulled me into a hug. “Good to finally meet you, Peri Jean Mace.” He broke the hug to stare at my face. “You look just like Leticia. Got the fire in your eyes. I’m your great-uncle Cecil.” He turned to Finn.
“Tell the others to start packing up now. We need to get out of Livingston as fast as we can.”
“Will do, Papaw.” Finn gave me another grin and went back through the flap in the tent.
My father’s ghost stood near the flap, watching me. Cecil spotted him and nodded. The ghost nodded back, turning his gaze on me. He raised one hand to his lips and blew me a kiss. Paul turned and passed through the side of the tent, maybe going to enjoy the carnival in his own way.
“We’ve got a few minutes before we need to leave. Why don’t you sit down, Peri Jean Mace, and tell me why you came to us tonight.” Cecil motioned to the chair on the other side of the table. I sat down in it, not sure what he wanted to hear.
Someone shouted in the tent beyond us. The sound of flapping wings reached my ears. The raven flew through the flap as though he knew exactly where to go and perched next to me. Cecil’s mouth dropped open.
“You are the one,” he whispered. “It was no lie.”
A woman ran in wielding a broom.
“No, no, sweetheart.” Cecil held up his hand to her, a fierce light in his eyes. “We mustn’t upset Orev. He belongs to Peri Jean and will enjoy the same respect we show her.”
The woman dropped the broom and backed away.
“As you were saying?” Cecil smiled as though the woman had come to ask if we wanted chips and dip.
“I spent my whole life trying to be something I wasn’t. But then my cousin Rae got murdered, and I lost that option…” I leaned my elbows on the table and looked into my great-uncle’s eyes. They were the same coffee brown as mine. I told him my story, and he listened.
The End
Keep reading for an excerpt from the next Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrille
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REAR VIEW: A PERI JEAN MACE PREQUEL
EXCERPT
Chapter 1
April 2001
Cold April wind whipped through the thin but sexy jacket I insisted on wearing and blew my carefully brushed, waist-length hair into a snarl. I stiffened my body to keep from shivering, but Memaw saw everything.
She leaned over the bench seat of her beat-up LTD sedan. “Told you it was too cold for summer clothes. Want me to bring you a sweatshirt?”
I shook my head. Behind me, inside the high school, the warning bell rang. Ten minutes until homeroom.
“Well, all right. Get on in there. I better not have another tardy slip to sign when you get home because you went looking for Chase Fischer.” She narrowed her dark eyes at me.
“I graduate in two months. I don’t understand why you insist—”
“Don’t take that tone with me, Peri Jean.” She glared at me until I stared at my feet. “If you hadn’t run off to New Mexico like a wild hare in mating season—”
How could she not understand? “My boyfriend got to play guitar for an honest-to-God rock band.” I raised my head and leaned into the car. “I wasn’t going to just sit here in the armpit of Texas and miss it.”
Memaw held one finger up. “If you want me to even think about letting you go to that prom with that damn boy, your attitude better be straightened out by the time I come to pick you up.”
“I can get a ride.” I gripped the car door, wishing I could slam it in her face but not quite daring.
“Keep dreaming. You’ve got to earn back my trust.” She put the car in gear. It was either close the door and go to class or let her drag me down the street. Angry as she was, I wouldn’t have put it past her.
I jogged up the steps and went inside. Once the door closed behind me, I rushed down the hall. If Chase was here, he’d be holding court in the informal smoking area behind the gym. I hit the back door running.
Chase’s friends met me there, dour expressions on their faces. They didn’t bother to smile if Chase wasn’t around. Teddy Darden, who played drums in Chase’s on-and-off band, was the only one who spoke to me.
