by Keta Diablo
When we reach the entrance, I tie Betsy to a post and feed her a few carrots. Her eyes are wide, but otherwise, she seems to be all right.
"Won’t be long, girl," I murmur to her.
Again, she farts in reply and I chuckle. It’s nice to cut the tension, because that’s exactly what I’m feeling. I feel like at any moment, I could snap.
Something is telling me not to go into the mine. To run back to St. Louis and forget all of this.
"Ever been in one of these?" Grant asks me.
"No." The life of a prostitute never took me to a place such as this.
He hands me a handkerchief. "Put this over your mouth and nose. You’re not gonna like the air."
I tie it around my face, feeling like a bandit myself. "What about you?"
"I’ll be fine."
We timidly walk in the entrance, following the mine cart tracks. I feel like we’re heading down the throat of a big beast buried in the hillside. The light only reaches so far before darkness swallows it whole. I can’t see what’s ahead, and it’s making me feel anxious.
Grant picks up a lantern hanging just inside the entrance, strikes a match, and lights it, throwing back the shadows a bit. I would have given anything for about fifty of those lanterns.
He was right about the air; even with the bandana over my mouth and nose, I breathe in the stale, damp miasma. It smells like rot and ruin, mixed in with dust.
I can’t imagine working here day in and day out. There are prisons, and then there are mines like this. I can sense the spirits here, the unrest. People died here, and I feel them as if they’re trying to pull me into the earth itself.
"Tell me about the mine," I say, keeping my voice as steady as possible. "Surely you know from living here for a bit."
Grant swings the lantern to look back at me, and I watch as the shadows flicker across his face. He looks both angelic and demonic, all at the same time.
"Edward Haight discovered silver here twenty years ago, shortly after the mine at Virginia City was founded. Made himself a rich man," he explains. "A lot of miners came here searching for their fortune. It’s how Carolina City popped up. It’s how half the town makes its money."
I wrap my arms to myself. "Did anyone die here?"
"Of course." Grant’s voice softened at that. "Whether it’s from collapses or sickness or arthritis, the mine took from miners what we get out of it."
"Sounds like an unfair tradeoff. Anyone you know?" I regret my question immediately, because his face darkens.
"I’ve been here too short a time to really to get to know anyone. But I do know that they were all good men."
"I’m sorry."
My boot comes into contact with something, and the clang of metal echoes off the walls, too loud for the space. I wince as Grant swings the lantern to take a look at the floor. I blink several times, trying to make out what’s at our feet.
I’d kicked a cooking pot. What that cooking pot is doing here, I can’t say, but I look back at Grant, confused.
"Is someone living here?"
Now that my eyes have adjusted and I’m looking at the floor, I see more evidence of someone having taken up residence. And not just one person; a few people, maybe even a dozen. Blankets, pillows, dirty clothes, pick axes, guns, and other pieces are strewn about on the floor. It feels like I’ve stumbled across a campsite.
"I thought this was a working mine?" I ask, turning back to Grant, shocked at this sudden turn of events. "What’s going on here?" I demand, accusingly.
He looks just as surprised as me, which is comforting, but not enough to stop the shakes in my hands. He opens his mouth to speak, but we hear a yell.
"A haint!"
The next few moments are a blur. Both Grant and I turn toward the entrance to see a man silhouetted by the dim light from the entrance. I can read enough of his movements to just see that he takes his gun and points it at me.
"NO!" Grant shouts, as a gunshot rings out, deafening in the mine. He flings his body across mine to take the bullet, and I scream his name as it enters through his chest. Pain explodes in my shoulder—from a bullet? But only one has been fired—and the lantern goes out as it hits the ground, forgotten by Grant.
I heave heavily, pain and panic blinding me as I reach for Grant’s motionless body. But the bullet—the one that grazed me—ricochets, dislodging boulders and rocks.
Then the mine collapses with us in it.
Chapter Nine
"Hattie! Hattie, please wake up, darling. Please. Don’t leave me!"
I don’t want to wake up from my slumber. Sometimes dreams feel like death. And if that happens, I know that waking up is going to feel even worse.
I fight it. I really fight it. But Grant’s voice brings me back. I’m not sure I want to face whatever I wake up to.
* * *
Grant’s cradling me, holding me to his chest as he sobs my name. I don’t know where we are, only that the pain hits me all at once. I gasp once before grimacing, and I gingerly touch my head with my left arm. If I thought my headaches from seeing ghosts were bad, it’s nothing like how I feel right now. My skull is splitting apart at the seams, threatening to explode like dynamite. My right arm is on fire. The one that got shot.
There’s blood. So much blood. I think a lot of it is mine.
"Hattie!"
I blink, trying to line up the images that are swirling around us. It’s darker now, as if the sun has fallen behind the hills, throwing the outside world into twilight. The good thing is, my eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the mine without the lantern.
It also helps that a bluish glow bounces off the walls.
"What...happened?" I turn to look at Grant and stifle a shriek.
Grant—my Grant—is glowing blue, bleeding from a spot in his head.
A ghost?
No, it’s can’t be.
He’s alive.
He has to be.
Instead, he offers a sad smile. "You’re alive. I thought...."
"You’re not!"
He scowls. "Shhh, Hattie. You’re going to cause another cave-in with your screams. This mine isn’t as solid as it once was, I think."
"Another...?" I look around and see the rocks and boulders all around us. One must have struck my head when the mine collapsed. I groan and rub the sore spot in my head before reaching down for my bottle of laudanum.
"I wish you wouldn’t," he sighs.
"Well, my lover is a ghost now, and I have a splitting headache, so I’m doing what feels best." I’m babbling, so I stop. I tip my head back and take the last of the bottle. The drug hits my bloodstream immediately, making me feel numb and giddy.
It takes the edge off the hurt in my head and heart. I’ll recover from one. I’m not sure about the breaking sensation in my chest.
The world is all watery, and I realize that I’m crying.
"Why didn’t you go into the light, Grant? Why?"
"I...couldn’t." His voice is soft, gentle.
"Why? Why, dammit?" I’m angry at him, like it’s his fault for dying. His fault for taking the bullet for me. His fault for—
"Because I think I died a while ago."
His words cut through my inner turmoil, and I snap my eyes open to look at him like he should be committed.
"What did you say?"
He smiles sheepishly and shrugs. "I’m dead, Hattie. Have been for almost half a year. I just remembered when the bullet didn’t hurt me." He unbuttons his shirt, and his bare chest is smooth, free of any bullet wounds. "I would have told you, but I didn’t remember." He’s chiding himself, angry. "I remembered the second the bullet didn’t strike me. But it hit you."
He tried taking a bullet for me, and it didn’t work. "How did you die, then?" I rasp.
"I was killed by bandits."
My heart pounds in my ears as I meet his eyes, searching for any hint of him making a joke.
But he looks sincere.
Dead?
"No," I whisper.
"Yes." He combs a hand through his hair, such a familiar movement, but he’s bleeding from a bullet wound in his head.
I scoot backwards, away from him, and cry out when my back hits a wall. "But everyone in town can see you. Talk to you. They—"
"They’re dead too, Hattie."
I shake my head, ignoring the stabs of pain that shoot through my head as I do so. "No, that’s not true. They’re all alive. Hell, they’re dying right now from whatever it was that Maude had."
"They’re ghosts." He looks at me imploringly, begging me with his eyes to believe him. "I’m so sorry, darling; I would have told you. Kept you from...."
Falling in love.
My head shakes even harder now as my tears keep falling. "No, I would have known. They all—"
"Hattie, you were never any good at telling who was a ghost and who wasn’t." A second bluish glow joins Grant’s, and my little-big sister steps out from the shadows, her face a mask of pity.
"Mary Ellen," I whisper. Anger surges me forward, and I lash out against her. "You knew? You could have told me. You always keep me in line, making sure that I haven’t gone crazy." I blanch, remembering that she had pointed out Mr. McLaughlin’s ghost to me. "Kept me from...from...."
I can’t say the words, because if I say them out loud, then that means they’re real. More real than Grant or Mary Ellen. I’ve fallen in love with a ghost.
"Remember what I said when you first arrived in Virginia City, Hattie?" Mary Ellen smirks. "You need someone to love. Be spoken for."
"I didn’t think you meant a ghost!"
She giggles. "Does it matter? You are—were, at least—happy. Isn’t that what matters?"
"No, you’re not making any sense!" I grit out. "You’re—"
"Leaving you, yes." Mary Ellen sighs. "I’m leaving you. For good."
"Y—you can’t do that!" I stammer.
"Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me for years now, Hattie? I’m going into the light."
I’m crying new tears now. I can’t believe this is happening. No, it can’t. I refuse to believe it. I’ve hit my head, and this is all some horrible dream.
"Look after my little sister, Grant," Mary Ellen says.
"As best I can," Grant answers solemnly.
I feel the light, feathery touch of Mary Ellen’s fingertips on my cheeks. I wonder how I could have ever mistaken that touch for something real. I’m losing my mind. This isn’t real. None of it is.
"Imagine," Mary Ellen murmurs softly. "Hattie Hart, former-prostitute-turned-psychic-detective. In love with a ghost. It’s fitting, you know."
"You can’t do this," I whisper.
"I am."
Mary Ellen’s voice sounds farther away, and I squint as light floods the cave. She’s pulled to the light and heaven, if it exists. The touch disappears from my chin.
And she’s gone. The first ghost I’ve ever spoken to, and the last vestige of my childhood, disappears before my very eyes. Leaving me alone in this godforsaken mine with Grant and who knows how many other ghosts.
The cards handed to me in this life have been cruel and mocking. And I don’t want any part in it.
I bend my legs to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and cry.
* * *
"The newspaper always said ‘1878’," I say, counting off all of the things that should have hinted at the fact that I’d been staying at a ghost town. "Because I was reading old newspapers in town. There was nothing wrong with the printer."
Grant nods solemnly, giving me the distance I need before accepting all of this as reality.
My tears have dried up since Mary Ellen left, and it’s strange to think that the spirit that has been following me since childhood is gone. I’ve always told her that I wanted her to go, and now that she has, there’s a gaping hole in my chest that she used to occupy.
She thinks that Grant can fill it. But I’m not sure if I’m ready to forgive him. Or that he’d even fill that spot inside me.
"The food always tasted awful, because it was spoiled."
"Except for the beans and rice," Grant offers. "They keep. So you didn’t starve because of that."
The talk of food roils my stomach, and I lean over and vomit everything I have left in me I don’t know how long I’ve been stuck here, but my last meal was the late breakfast that we had at Grant’s after the night we made love.
I made love to a ghost.
The thought is too incredible to believe.
"Are you all right?" Grant asks in reference to my vomiting, but it applies to everything else about me.
I shake my head and shy away from his ghostly touch. How could I have confused that ghostly touch for that of a man’s? It was more than me believing that I was seeing reality. I wanted him to be flesh and blood.
And now he wasn’t.
"Mr. Peterson warned me about going to Carolina City," I murmur. "Why didn’t he warn me that it was a ghost town?"
Grant shrugs. "Maybe you only heard what you wanted."
For a moment, I feel my anger rise, but then I deflate as I think about it. Is that what happened? Did my addiction to laudanum keep me from seeing the world as it truly is? Did he try warning me, and I insisted? All because I had a vague telegram from my boss?
How big of an idiot am I?
"No wonder he lent me Betsy," I mutter. "He was giving me a way to get back." Carolina City is twelve miles from Virginia City, and with the heat of the desert, I may very well have died on the way back. If I had ever figured out that I was trapped in a ghost town.
Grant takes my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. It feels more real than before.
"It’s because you want it to be," he whispers.
"Get out of my head," I snarl, dropping his hand and scooting away from him. I hate it when ghosts try that. "And I suppose that you’re the missing US Marshal? This whole time?"
"I don’t know," he admits truthfully. "That part I can’t remember. I’d tell you if I could. There are holes in my memory."
Ironic, since he has a hole in his head.
I sneer and turn away from him. "And the John Douglas Gang, are they ghosts too?" I thought about the man that died yesterday, how I had mourned him like he had just passed.
Only Grant shakes his head, surprising me. "They’re alive. Like you."
I narrow my eyes. "What?"
"They’ve been here for the past six months, trying to find the last of the silver." Grant nods toward where I think the entrance of the mine is (if there is still an entrance after the collapse). "I assume the man that shot you saw you here and thought you were a ghost."
I look down at my right arm, which is slowly oozing blood. I’d completely forgotten about it during my interrogation with Grant. I clamp a hand to it and wince at the contact.
"Let me," Grant says. He rips off a strip of fabric from my underskirts and begins wrapping it around my arm. Never mind that he’s supposed to be a ghost. Never mind that he’s not real.
"Oh, so now you’re not only a ghost, you’re a doctor?" I ask dryly.
"I’m helping," he says through gritted teeth.
And, admittedly, he’s able to wrap up my arm faster and easier than I would have been able to. "I didn’t realize that ghosts can do things like this."
He quirks a smile. "Ghosts are also supposed to not be able to make love."
I redden but chuckle at that. Very true. "So what now?"
"We get out of here, finish your assignment, and you leave before you get sick or starve to death or these bandits find you and do worse."
I’d been hoping that he wouldn’t say that. "All right, Marshal. Let’s get out of here."
I sigh and get to my feet. I feel very wobbly on my legs, but I manage to plant one foot in front of the other to make my way out of the mine. The cave-in has obscured the entrance, but luckily, there’s enough room for me to squeeze through between the rocks. Claustrophobia strikes me, making me move quickly and haphazardly. I stumble over my own feet several
times before I remember how to walk properly.
My split head doesn’t help.
But Grant is suddenly there, taking my hand and guiding me through the mine. I tear my dress and scrape my skin at points, but I’ll live if I ever make it out of this mine.
At one point, I see a body. Half a body, rather, as it’s underneath collapsed rubble.
"Must be the outlaw who shot me," I murmur.
"Don’t look," Grant mutters, but it’s too late. I’ve seen all there is to see, and I don’t feel any hint of remorse for him. The only thing that worries me is the fact that his ghost could be haunting me.
Finally, we emerge from the mine entrance. Nighttime has fallen on the hills, but to my relief, Betsy is still at the post, waiting for me. Grant’s horse is nowhere to be seen, but I realize with a sinking heart that the animal is probably dead too. I hope it got away and joined a group of wild horses out here.
And to think that the only living things that have been with me this past two weeks have been a bunch of outlaws and an old, blind mule.
"I don’t have any treats, girl," I whisper. This entire time, have I been feeding her moldy, shriveled versions of carrots? Have I been poisoning my mule like I’ve been poisoning myself?
Looking back at the entrance to the mine, I see that it’s exactly how my dream envisioned it. Old, warped, and broken from disuse.
How did I ever see it as fresh and new?
"You really didn’t remember that you were a ghost, Grant?"
"No," he says. "I think I didn’t want to remember dying."
I frown and meet his eyes. "Living can be just as hard, sometimes."
He doesn’t respond, and I sigh and pull myself up on Betsy, who grunts in answer. I’m glad that she’s steadfast. She may be the only thing I can count on from here on out.
"All right," I say to Grant, preparing myself. "Let’s see if you’re that missing marshal."
"And if I am?"
"Well," I say, feeling my heart sink, "then it’s my mission to make sure you’re at peace. And hopefully find this Kurt Bonneville character."
Chapter Ten
The Carolina City I arrive in is not the same Carolina City that I left.
I stop at the outskirts of town, the exact same place where Mr. Peterson dropped me off. It seems so long ago, especially with what I now see.
