by Mac Flynn
I hurried back to Roland and , and stuck the reel in front of the screen.
"We need to see this one," I told her.
She frowned at me and pressed her glasses against her pointed nose. "What do you say?"
"Now," I growled.
Drummond started back, but grabbed the reel and switched them. Roland looked at me over her head, and I shrugged. Drummond shifted through the first few pages and I saw it was a reel of very early newspapers. I leaned forward and studied the old columns and advertisements for men's non-electric shavers.
"What's the dates on these?" I asked her.
Drummond looked at the reel. "When the town was founded. 1910 through 1920," she told us.
I didn't see the picture on the screen. "Keep scrolling."
She frowned, but did as I ordered and scrolled the film. The headlines and columns flew by with flashes of hand-drawn and stamped pictures. I whipped my hand out as something white flashed by.
"That's it!" I yelled. The picture in front of us was the ghost who'd spent the entire night giving us exercise.
Drummond stopped scrolling and whipped her head to me. "Will you please be quiet!"
"Not when the fate of the entire town depends on it!" I argued.
"What are you babbling about?" she snapped.
Roland leaned forward and studied the picture. "This is Lady Violet?" he asked the librarian.
She turned and frowned at him. "Of course not. This picture is far too old to be Lady Violet, and this woman looks nothing like what I remember of her."
There was a small column with the picture, and a caption under the photo. I tried to make out the words, but they were too small. "Can we zoom in?" I questioned her.
"You are unbearable," Drummond scolded as she leaned forward and squinted. "Besides, I can read it just fine. It says 'Longtime resident Squire Benjamin Johnson was struck with tragedy last Thursday night when his wife of five years, young Violet Jezebel Johnson, was struck by lightning. She had gone out late to collect eggs due to a servant's illness, and was cut down in the yard in the prime of life. She left behind no one but her grieving husband.'"
"No wonder she's as mad as a wet hen," I quipped. Roland and Drummond turned to me with frowns, and I held up my hands. "I know, bad joke. What else does it say?"
Drummond returned her attention to "'She was duly buried in the Portham Cemetery. Mr. Johnson has informed us of his intentions to sell the home he and his wife shared near Vine Road, and to move to a neighboring farm.'" Drummond leaned away. "And that's it."
I glanced at Roland. "Looks like we've been blaming the wrong Violet."
"So it seems," he agreed.
"Now we know where she's buried what do we do?" I asked him.
He furrowed his brow. "I have some recollection that a spirit might find rest if it is escorted to its grave."
My eyes lit up and I pounded my fist into my other palm. "That's right! Frank said some ghosts just want to go where they're buried so they can take the eternal dirt nap!"
Drummond glanced between us and scooted her chair back. She stood and moved away from us. "I don't know what this is about, but I think you two need to leave."
I glanced behind her and felt the color drain from my face. "Do you have a car?" I asked Drummond.
She glared at me. "Of course I do."
"Just checking." I grabbed Roland's hand and pulled him towards the rear door of the library.
"That's the emergency exit!" Drummond scolded me.
We stopped at the emergency exit and I nodded at the front door. "I think this is a great time to use it."
Drummond looked at where I pointed and her mouth fell open. The front doors and windows were awash in the glow from Lady Violet Johnson's ghostly mist. It pressed against the front wall and slid inside via the drafty windows.
Roland and I fled out the rear door and an alarm sounded. That was Drummond screaming. I didn't look back to see what happened.
There was a small parking lot in back of the library, and the sole car was the one that belonged to Drummond. She owned a station wagon that was older than me and may have exceeded Roland's age. We raced over to door driver's door and tried it. Locked.
"Allow me," Roland offered as he pulled me aside. He slammed his hand through the glass and unlocked the door from the inside.
"Do you have to worry about fingerprints?" I asked him.
"I have no file anywhere," he pointed out.
"Good point." I glanced through the open door at the car design and my face fell. "You know how to drive a stick?"
"Fortunately, I do."
"Good. You're the driver."
Roland slipped into the driver's seat and unlocked the passenger door. I hopped in with the soul box aglow on my lap. The light brightened, and I looked at the emergency door. Mist steamed out from between the door and the frame and floated down the short flight of narrow steps towards us.
Roland had his head beneath the dashboard under the wheel.
"Roland, I know it's a good time to pray, but we really need to-" I jumped when the car roared to life.
He lifted his head, put the car into reverse, and slammed on the gas. The car jumped backwards and just out of reach of the mist and its tendrils. Roland spun the wheel and the car turned likewise until we faced the road. He changed gears, punched the gas, and we sped down the road to safety.
I clutched my heart in one hand and the box in the other.
"If this keeps up I'm going to need one of those plots in the cemetery," I quipped.
Roland looked in the rear-view mirror and frowned. "Fortunately, it is keeping up."
I spun around in my seat and looked behind us. The mist sped over the road after us, and I saw an outline of a very angry ghost at the front.
"Can't we go faster?" I asked him.
"We can, but we wish for her to follow us to the cemetery," he pointed out.
I slid into my seat and glanced at him. "You know where the cemetery is?" I asked him.
He grinned and pressed harder on the gas. "I am an undead."
I snorted and looked straight ahead. "I fell into that grave hole."
We flew over the road almost as well as Roland flew, and in a few minutes arrived at Portham Cemetery. The graveyard was the oldest one in town, and it looked it. Two large oak trees stood as silent sentinels on either side of the gated entrance. The grounds was on one of the tallest hills around the town, and was spotted with ancient trees whose long branches hung low over the graves. Tall tombstones were topped by weeping angels, huge effigies of the deceased, and small cherubs. A few mausoleums sat here and there with their stone doors sealed shut for all eternity, or until some idiot kid decided to pry them open. The whole place was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence with spikes atop each slim bar of black metal.
Roland slammed on the brakes and the car slid to a stop at the pair of huge metal gates. The mist was just behind us. We rushed out, and Roland took hold and flew us over the gates and into the cemetery. I looked up the hill and the countless rows of graves.
"It's like looking for a coffin splinter in a grass-stack," I quipped.
"We must try," he insisted.
"Fine, but don't tell me we're going to split up," I told him.
He smiled and grabbed my hand. "Never," he promised.
We rushed up the hill just as the ghost floated through the bars of the fence and gates. Roland looked from left to right at the tombstones, and I squinted hard to try to read them. The dim light of the waning moon didn't help. We hurried past one of the many trees with the low branches, and somehow the necklace from Frank swung up and caught on a limb. Roland pulled me forward and I was nearly strangled.
"Necklace!" I choked out as I tried to get the chain untangled.
Lady Violet flew up the hill and closed the distance between us to ten yards. Roland turned around and grabbed the branch. He snapped it off, yanked the chain from the broken branch, and pulled me to the right along that row of graves. We
were near the top of the hill, and I noticed the headstones were more weather-worn than the others we'd passed.
The chain again tried to kill me as it bounced up and whacked me in the face. I lost my balance and fell to the ground. Roland swung me into his arms and tried to flee, but the mist caught up and surrounded us. We were trapped.
CHAPTER 9
I clutched the glowing soul box tight in my hands as Violet stepped out of her misty self. Her human form was only partially transparent and her eyes held an almost human light if they hadn't been so red with anger.
"I have had quite enough of this chase," she growled. She held her hand out to me. "Give me the soul or I will destroy you, Breather."
I clutched the box closer to myself and stuck my tongue out at her. "I know you are, but what am I?"
Violet dropped her hands to her side and balled them into fists. Her form flickered between transparent and full body. "How dare you speak to me in such a manner! I am Lady Violet Johnson, wife to Squire Benjamin Johnson, and I will not be talked to with such impudence."
"I can talk to you like that because you're not even a walking corpse," I quipped. I slid out of Roland's arms and stood. "You're not even supposed to be here. You're supposed to be in one of these." I gestured to the graves around us, and she followed my hand. "Maybe you'd be-"
"What?" she roared.
"I said maybe you'd be-"
"Shut up!" she snapped at me.
Violet marched forward, but pushed me aside and looked at the row of graves behind us. They must have been a family plot because the headstones were all the same, though in various sizes. The largest sat in the center of the group and was for a married couple. The top decoration was a bench with a pair of lover who leaned into each others' arms.
"Rebecca Stuart?" Violet screamed. "You married our servant girl?"
I leaned forward and squinted. The glow from Roland's soul box and Violet's ethereal glow let me read the inscription.
Here Lies Benjamin Johnson, Beloved Husband And Father, and Beside Him Lies Rebecca Stuart Johnson, Beloved Wife And Mother. Surrounded By Their 12 Children, They Died In Peace.
"Did you even wait for my body to be buried before you wed? Did you have any dignity for our house after you abandoned it to the elements?" Violet screamed.
The glow around her body grew brighter and her form became more transparent. Roland and I glanced at each other. We slowly slid away, and the ghost completely ignored us. Her body shook with fury and the mist around her pulsed with static-charged energy. The wind picked up around us and whipped my costume and Frank's necklace. Roland clasped my hand and pulled me behind an especially large headstone. We knelt behind the stone as the deafening wind tried to beat out the horrible rage of the furious phantom.
"Twelve children? Was two not enough?" Violet screamed.
"What's happening?" I shouted above the wind and her rage.
"Plug your ears!" Roland replied.
I tucked the soul box between my legs and clapped my hands over my ears. The light on the other side of the gravestone grew as bright as a white-hot sun and lit up the graveyard. Shadows from the highest graves spilled onto the road at the bottom of the hill. Violet's shrill voice turned into a wailing whistle.
And then there was a loud burst, and the earth and air trembled. The light was extinguished at the same time and the world dove into quiet darkness. I slowly lowered my hands and Roland did the same. We stood up and peeked over either side of the tombstone.
Violet, and her mist, were gone. There was only a blackened spot in the grass where she'd stood. I glanced at Roland.
"Um, what just happened?" I asked him.
"It seems she was too full of anger to survive," he surmised.
"Come again?"
"A spirit has no physical body to contain their emotions. If they become consumed by a single, strong emotion for too long then they burst," he explained.
Something soft and small landed on my nose. I tilted my head back and beheld a snowfall of sparkling glitter. I held out my hand and let the sparkles fall into my palm.
"And become glitter?" I added.
"Astral remains," he corrected me.
"Yuk!" I dropped my hand and wiped it on Roland's coat. "You could have told me sooner."
He chuckled. "They won't harm you," he assured me.
A bright glow caught our attention, and we both looked down at my hands and the soul box in them. The astral remains fell onto the lid, and light inside the box brightened. The glitter that fell all around us sparkled in reply and their brightness flew as specks into the box. The glow dimmed in the box and glitter, and in a moment we were in the dark. I tilted the box and looked up at Roland.
"Is this good?"
"Very good," he told me. "My soul has returned to me.
My shoulders slumped and I smiled. "Good. That means we can go home and I can take this stupid necklace off. It's been nothing but-" I grabbed at where the necklace should have been around my neck, but it was gone. I whipped my head left and right, but without the glow I couldn't see a thing. "Where'd it go? Roland, you have to help me find it."
Roland glanced over the ground and turned in a circle. His eyes stopped on one of the lower rows fifty feet down the hill, and he pointed at a particular stone.
"I see it. It's hanging on a tombstone," he told me.
"The wind must have blown it down there," I commented as I grabbed Roland's hand and dragged him down to it. "That thing's going under lock and-key?"
Roland and I stopped five yards from the tombstone. A faint glow emanated from the plant emblem on the chain. The glow floated out of the chain and formed a transparent figure in front of the tombstone. I tilted my head to one side and furrowed my brow.
"Frank?" I whispered.
It was Frank in all his transparent glory. He wore a suit from the fifties complete with dorky bow tie, and across his forehead was an ugly gash. A fatal gash.
He smiled at me. "I'm sorry for using you all night, but I thought it was worth the risk."
"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked him.
He pointed at the tombstone. "I'm talking about this."
Roland and I walked around to the front of the tombstone. The faint glow from Frank let me read the name.
"Francis Truman," I read aloud. My head whipped to Frank and my eyes widened. "You're Francis?"
"In the flesh, or I used to be," he admitted. "I've haunted that highway all these years hoping I would find someone I trust who would bring that necklace back here." He paused and chuckled. "I had to wait a long time for you."
"But Lady Violet-" He shook his head.
"Her ghost never haunted the highway. It was always mine." He picked up the necklace and smiled down at it. "I guess people saw this flash in their headlights and my transparent body, and thought I was a girl."
"Wait, so you left that behind hoping I'd come here?" I guessed.
He looked up and nodded. "Yep. I'd heard about all the strange happenings from the homes along the highway, and I guessed maybe you'd have some hand in it." He winked at me. "You always did have a lot of spunk."
"Francie?" a soft voice spoke up.
All our eyes whipped around to our right. A transparent girl in a white poodle-skirt dress stood five feet away. The girl wore her long brown hair in a ponytail and her shoes were black and pointed. She had a bright, wondrous eyes that looked at Frank in disbelief.
I snorted. "Francie?"
"Violet. . ." he whispered.
He dropped the necklace and ran through us to get to her. A smile brightened her beautiful face. Frank grabbed her around the waist and twirled her in the air.
"Violet! It's been so long!" Frank shouted.
"Too long!" she laughed.
He put her down and clasped her hands as they looked in each others' eyes. "I'm sorry I took so long. I had to wait a long time for someone to bring me here so I could rest." He half-turned to Roland and me. "Violet, this is Misty and Rol
and. They're the ones who brought my soul here."
She smiled at us. "Thank you so much for bringing him here. I thought he'd never get his lazy bones to his body."
"It wasn't too much of a problem," I told her.
They looked back at each other.
"Are you ready?" she whispered.
Frank smiled. "I've been ready for a long time."
I picked up the necklace and held it out to them. "Don't forget this."
Violet's eyes lit up and she looked to Frank. "My necklace!"
He nodded. "It kept me sane knowing I would one day be able to get to you."
"So which one of you wants it?" I asked them.
Violet shook her head. "No, the necklace is yours now. Consider it my thanks for bringing Francie back to me."
"Keep it safe, Misty," Frank advised me. "You never know when it'll come in handy again."
I lowered the necklace and frowned. "'Come in handy?'"
"That necklace is a powerful symbol of love. Keep it close to your heart and you'll always be safe," he told me.
I snorted and hung the necklace around my neck. "The guys at the diner are going to miss your strange babble, Francie," I teased.
He smiled back. "And I'm going to miss Ralph's apple pie."
"I'll eat some for you," I promised.
"But skip the coffee," he reminded me.
I nodded. "I will."
"Come on, Francie, your parents are waiting," Violet told him.
Frank glanced one last time at me and gave a wave. I returned the wave, and the pair walked away from us. The farther they walked the more transparent they became until they disappeared altogether.
"Quite a Halloween we've had," Roland commented.
I held up the necklace in front of my face and let the flower slowly spin. I realized then it was a bunch of violets.
"One I'm never going to forget," I replied. I dropped the chain and smiled up at him. "But you still owe me a dinner."
He smiled and bowed his head. "So I do, but first there's something I've been meaning to do."
"What's-" Roland leaned down and pressed his lips against mine.
