by C. K. Brooke
I hear the clicks of their belts unbuckling and we emerge from the car. The grass is squishy, soggy beneath my feet as I cross the lawn to the gate. I wish I’d brought my boots; these tennis shoes are sinking in the mud.
When we pass through the open metal gates, the cemetery is underwhelming, to say the least. There are maybe fifty stones at most. Mason and Henry come up tentatively behind me, as if awaiting my instruction.
I indicate the last row. “Okay… Mason, why don’t you check the back? Henry, you can search the front. I’ll search the ones in the middle.”
“To be clear, we’re looking for anyone named Susan?” Henry wants to know.
I nod. “But check the dates too. Let me know if you see someone who died relatively young. Like, in her teens.”
Mason heads to the back of the tiny cemetery while I move toward the middle, scanning each stone. George Poczek. Florence Poczek. Both born in the 1930s, both died within the last fifteen years.
I keep scanning. James William Blanchard. Elizabeth Ann Blanchard. Margaret Blanchard. Harold Blanchard. I guess the whole Blanchard family rests here.
My shoes squelch as I slowly move on. Timothy Howe.
There are a couple of crumbling stones in the farthest row to the left, with dates that go back to the 1800s. I keep reading. I don’t see anyone that died at an age younger than forty. And I don’t see a Susan at all.
When Mason, Henry, and I reconvene in the center of the cemetery not long after, I don’t have to ask to know they’ve come up emptyhanded too.
We head back to the car. I make sure to scrape the mud off my shoes in the parking lot before getting in. Once the doors are shut, I frown.
It’s not that I’m doubting whether all of this is real. Only, I’m beginning to doubt if we really can find solid evidence.
Yet, the 1950 census…the one I’d found online. It proved that a Raymond E. Sanderson—the name Henry had claimed while under hypnosis—had existed. If there was proof of Ray, there’d be proof of Susan. There had to be.
But that census was recorded when Ray was a six-year-old child. What if he’d moved away in his adult life? What if Elms Creek wasn’t the town where he’d met Susan after all? What if my proof isn’t here?
The black-and-white picture online, I remind myself. Of downtown Elms Creek. I definitely recognized it.
This has to be the right place. And the deeper we drive into town, toward the second cemetery, the more I’ve convinced myself.
We pull up to a much larger cemetery. I read the relatively modern-looking sign over the entrance: Holy Trinity Memorial Garden. Giant white statues of Jesus and Mary loom in the distance.
I shudder as Mason parks. My limbs suddenly feel like they’re full of lead.
“You okay?” Mason prods me. “You look…concerned.”
“It just feels weird, is all,” I mumble.
The air is heavy with the threat of another storm as we move together up the path. The three of us stop beneath the entrance.
“It’s going to take forever to read all these,” complains Henry, eyes roving across the acres of tombstones. “I’m already freezing my ass off out here.”
I sigh.
“We’ll split up again,” suggests Mason. “Does that sound good, Willow?” I don’t miss the discomfort in the way he rocks a little on his heels. He appears about as creeped out as I feel. Henry, on the other hand, groans under his breath.
“Yeah, let’s split,” I agree pointedly. I’m not going to let him off the hook. He’s going to help us whether he wants to or not.
We each go our separate ways on the path, me staying near the front this time. Eric Ludner. Genevieve Schenk. Mary and Robert Olsen. Carved names swim before me as I read each headstone, one by one.
Some graves have fresh flower arrangements laid out at them. It depresses me to think of people coming here to mourn their loved ones. It depresses me even more to think of the loved ones who’ve been forgotten…for whom no one mourns anymore.
Susan Rodmell-Rice.
My pulse catches as I find the first Susan after ten minutes of fruitless searching. But I quickly notice the dates don’t add up. This Susan died when I would’ve been twelve years old in this lifetime. And she’d lived well into her eighties.
Keep moving…
There are a couple of miniature headstones on the left. Curious, I read them and realize they’re for infants who died the day they were born, or just a few days after. I’ve never considered myself much of a baby person, but for some reason, this gets to me. There’s a burning sensation behind my nose, and I sniffle it back.
I tread the grounds for what feels like the better part of an hour in empty silence, scanning, searching, praying to the Goddess…
Until Mason calls my name.
I turn, looking all around for him. I’m about to assume I imagined it when I spot him at last, standing near the edge of the cemetery, as still as headstone himself.
“Willow,” he calls again, his voice subdued. “Henry. You both…need to see this.”
My heart thumps as I briskly move up the paved path. Henry’s form, too, is moving through a mist of fog in our direction.
We meet at a row of lawn-level grave markers. Mason’s looking down at one of the flat, flush stones. His complexion is disconcertingly pallid.
Already, I’m shaking. Descending carefully to my knees, I stroke the engravings with trembling fingers.
Susan Eleanor Dochy
March 3, 1958 – August 12, 1974
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you – Phil. 1:3
My breath hitches. “Oh, my Goddess,” I whisper. It’s as if electricity courses through my fingertips as I touch the cold stone. I’m barely able to contain the emotions charging through me, like horsemen into a battlefront.
Henry swears loudly.
Alarmed, I glance up. “You’re among the dead. Show some respect.”
“I’m sorry.” He lifts a hand over his mouth. “I just have this crazy déja-vù right now, and it’s freaking me the hell out.” He looks up, turning three-hundred-sixty degrees, as if the sky holds answers. “…feel like I’m going to jump out of my effing skin…”
My heart quakes as I pet the stone, almost with affection, and definitely sadness…so much sadness. Yet it quickly mounts into resentment…then anger.
I glare up at my stepbrother. “Well? Believe me now?”
Henry only rounds on Mason, who looks like he’s seeing a ghost. “What the hell are you doing? Is this some kind of head game?”
Mason lifts his hands defensively, but doesn’t speak.
“Damn it, Henry, he’s not doing anything!” Torrents of emotions in every shade surge through me, and I realize I’ve begun to shiver violently.
Henry rubs his forehead, agony flashing in his eyes. “This isn’t right—it’s not possible. I can’t recognize somewhere I’ve never been before—”
“Jesus Christ, Henry!” My chest feels like it could bust open, like it’s being crushed by a thousand elephants. “When are you going to just admit it?”
“Calm down, both of you.” Mason’s voice is firm. “Everyone just needs to keep their heads screwed on. All right?”
“I feel terrible right now.” Henry sounds hollow. “Like…complete and utter garbage.”
“Join the club; we’ve got hats,” I mutter. I lay a hand over my tossing stomach, worried I’m going to be sick. My fascination is rapidly wearing away into a dizzying spiral of sorrow and dread. It’s like all of Susan’s anguish had been lying here with her, buried at this site, for the last forty-plus years. And now I’ve gone and dug it up.
Her ghosts, her demons…they’ve taken hold of us.
Clearly conflicted, Henry paces up the walking path. A small part of me wants to go and console him, to work through it together, help him make sense of it.
But then, I know I don’t owe him anything. Because this was his all fault in the first place.
Imbibing a dee
p breath, I take out my phone to capture a picture. As I reread the death year on her stone—1974—I run the calculations in my head. Susan was sixteen when she died.
Ray, born in 1944, had been thirty.
That’s when I remember. It’s all so broad as daylight, every hurt and betrayal left so raw and untouched, I can’t fathom how I could’ve ever forgotten.
Was engaged…to someone else, Henry had said during his regression—the one Mason had performed on him, that evening in his office. I still had the eerie recording in my email. Then Susan… Henry had taken a breath, and my heart twists all over again to recall it. You were too young. I was…torn.
He was about to marry another woman.
Then he met Susan. She was too young for him, but they were in love.
Or, at least, I’d thought we were.
Ray didn’t choose Susan in the end.
Then look what happened to me.
I snap another photo of the stone, determined. “Google Susan Dochy, Elms Creek, nineteen seventy-four,” I demand.
“Me?” asks Mason.
“I don’t care. One of you.”
A minute later, Mason passes me his screen. He’s pulled up an article from the Elms Creek, Missouri Obituary Index. All that’s there are a few sentences. I skim over them with watering eyes, my heart tearing in two:
Fatal automobile accident…speed of the vehicle estimated at over 65 mph when it drove off the bridge into the Punitaw Reservoir. The driver, deceased…identified as sixteen-year-old Susan Dochy of 229 Robin Rd…
I tap an icon at the bottom of the screen and forward the article to myself. I’ll read it more closely later. For now, my gut is clenching. “The Punitaw Reservoir,” I breathe.
“Willow,” Mason interrupts. “It might be too much for one day.”
“It’s not even noon yet!” Apparently, I’ve offended a nearby crow, as it flutters its feathers and flaps away from me. “I didn’t come all the way here to chicken out!”
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with,” Mason returns, heated. “This is way beyond my expertise. I’m speaking to you as a pagan—I shouldn’t have to tell you there’s danger in screwing around with stuff we aren’t prepared for, that we don’t fully understand. You already know this. Maybe…maybe we should’ve left all this buried in the past.”
I’m shocked. “If that’s what you think, then why did you regress me in the first place? Why did you agree to take me here?”
“I had no idea it would go this far.” His eyes are as imploring as his tone. “And I didn’t realize it would feel so…so messed up. Like we’re not supposed to be here.”
“Are you afraid?” Even I’m surprised by how scathing I sound.
Mason doesn’t respond. Henry has stopped pacing, and is now staring into the distance, evidently at one of the back roads leading away from the cemetery.
“We have my name,” I argue, returning my focus to Mason. “We know how I died. And I know it wasn’t an accident.” I swallow. “Someone cut my brakes. I’m going to find out who, and why.”
Mason looks spooked as I hand him back his phone. “You’re talking like you’re still her,” he accuses. “But you aren’t anymore. You’re Willow.”
“You brought me here to uncover the root of my phobia,” I remind him hotly.
“Yeah, so you could let it go! Not dig deeper and completely entrench yourself in it. Not wear her skin and embody her all over again. You have a whole new life to live—that’s what I’ve been trying to help you do. Heal the past, so you can move on. Not wallow in it!” His chest heaves as his eyes shift, somewhat furtively, to Henry.
I shake my head at him—either in disappointment or disbelief, I haven’t decided. Before I can retort, my stepbrother speaks, his voice as faraway as his gaze.
“You guys.” He squints. “I can’t explain, but…I just know that something’s down that road. Something important.”
“Not now.” I grit my teeth. “We’re going to see where I died.”
I’ve never seen Mason so tense. His shoulders are bunched as he lets out a defeated breath. He then indicates the pendulous clouds rolling closer on the low horizon. “Well, then,” he frowns, “we’d better get going.”
15
Mason backs the car out of the memorial garden’s parking lot. Wistfully, Henry watches the back roads shrink out of sight through the rear windshield. I don’t have time to pity him or wonder whatever he thinks is back there. I’m on a mission.
I study the map on my phone. “Robin Road is on the way to the reservoir.” I connect the device to Mason’s mount. “I just want to do a drive-by first.”
Mason’s lips tighten, but he doesn’t object.
We course through downtown Elms Creek. I recognize it, but only vaguely. It’s been updated, modernized since the era of the black-and-white photograph I found on the Internet. It’s not how I remember it.
Susan Dochy… Susan Dochy…
I repeat the name internally, trying to recall any more memories of being her, other than the visions I’ve already received. I think I remember the night of her junior prom…or maybe it was homecoming. I wouldn’t go near events like those in this lifetime. But as Susan, I’d lived for them.
I was the queen.
Some of it is coming back to me. There was a beautiful dress…a tiara glittering in my hair… I loved that tiara…
My gaze slides over to Mason. He’d said it felt messed up, like we weren’t supposed to be here. I can’t agree. At the same time, I can’t think; too many thoughts and feelings are competing for airtime in my skull. I can’t even begin to separate the good from the bad, let alone the shouldn’ts from the ought tos.
My pulse kicks up as we turn onto a series of ill-kept residential roads. The older ranch and two-story homes, while slightly larger than the house Henry and I live in, are modest at best. I know I’ve seen this neighborhood a hundred times before, long ago. And I don’t need the GPS to tell Mason to turn left, then hang a right.
He brings the car before a small, colonial brick house as the electronic voice on my phone announces, “You have arrived at two twenty-nine Robin Road.”
I stare up through the car window, lost for words.
I know every room. The floorplan is committed to my memory like instinct. I know that, were I to open the front door, there’d be a stairwell, front and center. The dining room is to the left, and the kitchen just behind it. I know there’s a den across from the kitchen, and a brown-carpeted living room. The washer and dryer are in the basement. It was unfinished concrete the last time I saw it.
My eyes trail up to the top story and land upon one of the gables. I can’t stop staring at the window tucked into it. It was the window to my bedroom.
I unfasten my seatbelt.
“What are you doing?” demands Mason.
“I just want to go knock on the—”
“You aren’t thinking straight.” He blocks me from pulling the door handle. “You can’t just go knocking on the door. This isn’t your house anymore.”
My voice is trembling. “What if her parents still live here?”
“Look,” Henry utters behind us.
A pair of young children, a boy and a girl, come leaping around the side yard. They’re dressed in boots and rain slickers. The boy swings a foam sword, and the girl runs up to the door, cradling what looks like a Raggedy Ann doll. Their high-pitched shouts echo to our car, but I can’t make out the words.
The girl slips inside the house with her dolly, escaping her brother’s chase. The little boy looks about to follow suit when he notices our car stalling in the road. He halts in the front lawn to watch us.
“It belongs to a young family now. We need to go.” Mason shifts the gear into drive.
“Wait! Maybe I could talk to their parents. They might be able to tell me who sold them the—”
“I’ve got out-of-state plates. We look sketchy as hell,” says Mason, and pulls away.
My chest
tightens as we peel off of Robin Road, as if a cord connects my heart to the house, and we’re stretching it to the snapping point. Jaw clenched, I tap the GPS until it begins reciting directions to the Punitaw Reservoir.
I feel my features hardening as I resume my gaze out the windshield. Behind us, Henry is uncharacteristically quiet for not having a book in his lap.
“Willow.” Mason’s tone has softened significantly. He lays a hand over my thigh, and a small quiver runs through me that has nothing to do with past lives. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t think it was a good idea for you to go back in there.”
He removes his hand, replacing it upon the steering wheel.
I don’t reply, watching farms and fields roll past. Tiny spurts of drizzle dapple the windows. I stare past the sprinkling rain as we drive by what looks like an abandoned dairy farm.
Mason glances at the GPS, then does a double-take. “Dude—this place is practically on the border of Illinois.”
“I know,” I say at once, although consciously, I hadn’t. I’d barely been paying attention when I’d pulled up the directions. I study the screen now. It’ll be another twenty minutes. Elms Creek isn’t far from the border to begin with.
“So…why was Susan driving to Illinois?” Mason wants to know.
“She was making a run for it.” My recurring dream returns to me in snippets. There was a sense of urgency…the need to leave…fields sailing past the windshield…definitely speeding… “Obviously, she didn’t make it.”
“Why was she making a run for it?” Mason quickly glances at me, then back to the road. “Do you remember?”
My head starts to hurt. I shut my eyes, massaging the sockets. “She was in trouble. Big trouble.” I swear loudly, ducking my head into my hands. It suddenly hurts almost as bad as it did at the diner, when I blew up at Henry.
Henry.
My head shoots up and I turn around in my seat. “You! It was your fault.”
Henry places a hand on his chest innocently. “I got you into trouble?”
