Ghost Walk

by Cassandra Gannon

  Jamie grunted. “A bit.”

  He’d occasionally snuck into parties at the mansion and the maze had been the most entertaining spot at the stuffy gatherings. The walls were over seven feet high, all full of dark corners and dead ends. Couples could be agreeably alone in the twisty pathways.

  “A bit?” She repeated skeptically. “Is that your way of not telling me about your sleazy assignations in the garden?”

  “Everything that happened before I met you becomes a bit of a blur.” He explained piously.

  Grace’s mouth twitched. “That’s a good line.” She stepped over the chain barricade and moved down the maze’s left corridor. “Let’s try this direction. Keep your eyes open.”

  “For what?”

  “Something that was around when Anabel was here. Something that wouldn’t have changed.” For a woman who’d nearly hyperventilated at the Wentworth’s house, she seemed fine with entering the garden without permission to find a blood-soaked crime scene. Probably because she’d forgotten she was trying to fit in with “normal” society.

  Grace was kidding herself if she thought she could be anything but brilliant and brave and bursting with enchantment. Her insistence on being “normal” was like a butterfly wanting to cut off its wings and turn back into a caterpillar. You couldn’t suppress magic like Grace possessed. The fearless spirit and the love of adventure. Underneath that uptight exterior, the woman had the soul of a pirate. No doubt, her living, breathing, husband-materially Partner was aching to show her how much fun that could be.

  Just the idea of it made Jamie crazy.

  What the fuck was he going to do?

  Grace’s camera was looped around her neck. She adjusted the setting to something called “IR” and snapped a picture of a cupid statue. The image that popped up on screen looked… strange. The colors were all wrong. The plants showed up as white and the sky glowed orangey-pink.

  “Your camera will show us something?” He asked. Focusing on the past seemed far easier than thinking about the future.

  She nodded and kept walking. “Infrared lens can detect blood that’s been painted over.”

  “Like magic.”

  She shot him a quick look. “It’s not magic, Jamie. It’s science.”

  “Not much of a difference, if you ask me. They both make impossible things into reality.” No wonder she missed her forensic job. Grace’s blood cried out for enchantment and investigating crime gave it to her. “Speaking of which, I never did get a chance to ask you… What’s the other spell you can cast?”

  “What?”

  “Yesterday, when Robert attacked you, you said you only knew two spells. One was for mensural cramps. What’s the second?”

  Grace hesitated. “The Rivera Doomsday Spell.” She finally muttered.

  “Doomsday Spell? Well, that sounds quite promising. What does it do?”

  Grace gave a superior sniff. “I don’t ever plan to use it, so it doesn’t matter.” She took another picture, this time of an arrangement of decorative rocks. “Darn it.” She looked back at the map and picked another path, clearly not willing to discuss magic. “Okay, so let’s pretend you’re Anabel Maxwell. You’re at a party, at night, playing in the hedge maze with someone. Is there anything particular you might have done in here?”

  He arched a brow at her.

  “…Besides the obvious.”

  Jamie chuckled at her prim tone. The woman never failed to delight him. “It doesn’t much seem like Anabel to be in the hedge maze, a’tall.” He told her. “She wasn’t a fun-loving lass, like Lucinda. A man would have to do some fast talking to have her risking her reputation for some frolic in the gardens. She must have known him quite well.”

  Grace mulled that over. “Was she dating anyone? Or courting or whatever you called it in 1789?”

  “I have no idea. I barely knew the girl. The whole family were bloody idiots, so I had no desire to socialize with them. Her blockheaded brother nearly lost us the Battle of Yorktown.” Two centuries had passed and it still annoyed him.

  “Gregory Maxwell was the Hero of Yorktown. Everyone knows that.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You’re just mad he wrote Horror in Harrisonburg, detailing all the reasons you were the killer.”

  Jamie ignored that, because it was patently impossible that that numb-skull wrote any book beyond a “How To” guide on general stupidity. “I was at Yorktown, so I vividly recall that jackass nearly…”

  “Shh!” Grace suddenly put her finger against her lips to hush him, even though she was the only one who could hear him anyway. “I think someone’s coming.”

  Jamie listened for a moment and --sure enough-- he could hear movement in the hedgerows. “Stay here.” He walked through the walls of the maze, scanning up and down the long, green aisles. Near the entrance, he spotted two Harrisonburg employees looking around.

  Shit.

  “Everything seems okay to me, Morris.” One of the guys said. He was college-aged, with a bad goatee and a name badge that read “Emmett.”

  “I’m telling you, I saw somebody come in here.” The boy named Morris was about the same age, with equally atrocious facial hair. His wide hazel eyes were darting around. “It was a pretty woman in an old-fashion dress, just wallllking into the maaaaze.” His voice lilted across the words, stretching out the syllables so they had the spooky cadence of a narrator from an old B movie. “She was talking to someone who wasn’t there. Like maybe she didn’t know she was dead or something.”

  Jamie squinted at him. “What the bloody hell…?”

  “You spend too much time reading at those dumb paranormal sites.” Emmett opinioned, trying to sound braver than he looked. “We need to check out the pathways and make sure it wasn’t some vandal or a lost kid or something.” …But he didn’t venture any deeper into the labyrinth.

  Neither did Morris, who was equal parts excited and scared. “It wasn’t a frigging kid, Emmett!” He whispered fiercely. “I think it was really her. Anabel Maxwell has come to haunt the spot where she died. Shit like this happens all the time! I told you she was real!”

  Jamie smiled in delight and ducked back through the hedgerows, returning to the spot where he’d left Grace. Phasing through solid matter was one of the small perks of being incorporeal. It only took him a moment to cheat his way through several hundred feet of maze. “Well, good news and bad news.” He told her, calmly. “Bad news: Two of your fellow tour guides are poking about in here.”

  She paled. “Oh no! How am I supposed to find any blood evidence if I’m locked in a jail cell for trespassing?”

  “Which brings us to the good news… They think you’re a ghost.”

  Grace blinked. “Come again?”

  “They think you’re Anabel, haunting the scene of the crime.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She rolled her eyes like the very idea was ludicrous. “Because of the stupid dress? Half the people in Harrisonburg wear costumes! I swear, it’s like this town goes out of its way to hire idiots.”

  Jamie arched a brow at her derision. “Ghosts are such a farfetched notion, then?”

  “Oh shut up.”

  He chuckled. The whole situation had perked him up immensely. “I wouldn’t worry much about the boys. They seem a bit terrified of you, lass.”

  “Wonderful. If they get too close, I’ll just yell ‘boo!’” She hissed. “For real, what are we going to do?”

  “I find that belittling someone’s tour-guiding techniques is the best way for a ghost to be noticed.”

  Grace made a face. “I’m glad you’re finding this so funny.”

  “Aye, I really am.”

  She deliberately turned on her heel and headed away from him, down another twisty row of vegetation. “Just keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t find me. I’m going this way.” She consulted the map again. “At least, I think I am.”

  “Following that blasted thing, the only place you’re going is ‘round and
‘round and ‘round in circles.”

  “We’re not going ‘round and ‘round and ‘round in circles. It just seems that way, because everything is all green and leafy.”

  “And because we’ve made a loop.” He said dryly. “We’re standing in the same spot we were ten minutes ago.”

  She looked around with a perplexed frown. “Are you sure?”

  “Very.”

  Grace kept walking, just to spite him. “Well, the map says that we need to take this path, so I’m…” She broke off mid-word, realizing that Ned’s useless instructions had led them right into a dead end.

  Jamie snorted in amusement. “At this rate, you will wind up a ghost in here. The teenage tours guide will find your poor skeleton, miles from the entrance and still clutching that so-called ‘map’ in your wee bony hand.”

  “You can stop talking now.” Grace backtracked, a frustrated expression on her face. “Go check to see where they are. I don’t want to be arrested today.”

  Jamie blew her a kiss and headed off to spy on the other guides again. As funny as the whole thing was, he was slightly concerned about the boys being alone in the maze with Grace. They seemed harmless enough, but, after yesterday, he was anxious about the intentions of other men. He was useless in a fight and there were only so many times a menstrual cramp spell would work. It would be better for everyone if they just went away.

  When he rejoined the two of them, they were approximately three feet farther down one of the pathways, still bickering about the best course of action.

  “We should call Anita down here to deal with it.” Morris was arguing. “That fascist bitch is head of the tour guides. Fuck knows, she tells us enough that she’s the boss. She should be the one to deal with emergencies, right?”

  Apparently, he was no fan of Grace’s employer either. That raised Jamie’s opinion of the boy. He wasn’t forgetting how unkind Anita had been to Grace when she was wounded. The girl really did need a new job. And Anita needed a good ass-kicking.

  “And let her get all the credit?” Emmett shot back, fiddling with the camera app on his phone. “What if this is a real ghost, huh? If we could get a picture of it, do you know how many hits we would get? We’d be internet royalty! You just want to hand that kind of fame over to Ms. Beauregard-Smythe?” He scoffed at the very idea. “What the hell would she even do with it? ”

  Morris made a considering face, conceding the point. “She is --like-- way old.”

  “Old? She’s probably still on fucking MySpace! Screw that ancient hag.” Emmett held up his phone. “If we get a few good shots of something supernatural, we can spend the rest of the summer at the beach, drinking PBR and talking to hot chicks.”

  Jamie admired the boys’ goals, but enough was enough. He didn’t want potentially dangerous men alone with Grace, he didn’t want her worried about getting caught trespassing in the maze, and he certainly didn’t that harridan Anita showing up to harass her.

  “Grace, my love?” He shouted. “Remember when you said you could yell “Boo!” and scare the boys away? That might not be such a terrible idea. They want to see a ghost, so perhaps we should give them one.”

  She understood what he meant without asking for further details. It was one of the reasons he loved her. Leaves began to rustle in an eerie wave and Grace gave a low moan of ghostly torment that was really quite impressive. Whether she liked it or not, spending her childhood in a haunted house had definitely rubbed off on the girl. It was quite a creepy little show.

  Emmett and Morris froze. All thoughts of finding fortune and glory on the internet faded in the face of a possible actual ghost. In unison, they edged backwards, towards the exit.

  “Did you hear that?” Emmett demanded.

  Morris frantically bobbed his head.

  “Little more, lass.” Jamie called, grinning widely.

  She obliged by screaming the most bloodcurdling scream ever screamed. It sounded like she was being attacked by a herd of rapid porcupines… while simultaneously being burned alive with a million blowtorches… at the dentist… in hell. Even Jamie cringed at the god-awful noise. It bloody brilliant!

  Emmett and Morris took off running. They tripped all over each other, dashing out of the maze, never to return. Not even the promise of work/study credits was going to lure them back to their jobs after Grace’s performance. No real ghost could have done half as good a job.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, how had he lasted two and a half centuries without this beautiful, odd-duck of a woman?

  “That did the trick.” He was still laughing uproariously as he moved back to her side. She’d found her way into a new row of the maze, which had to have been the work of pure luck. Ned’s map really was leading them in circles. “Those lads are quite scarred for life. You should be proud.”

  “My great-great grandmother had an affair with Bela Lugosi.” Grace shrugged uncomfortably and photographed a bench. “It’s probably in my DNA.” Her picture came up empty again. “Crap.” She kept moving. “We need to stay focused on the investigation.” Being anything other than white-bread-and-tap-water ordinary still made her uneasy, so it was obvious she’d rather not discuss her acting skills.

  But from the sparkle in her eyes, it was also pretty damn clear she’d enjoyed the prank.

  He gave her a knowing smile. “You donea have to pretend to be normal with me, you know. You can be just as magical as you truly are.”

  Grace cleared her throat, ignoring that. “Like I was saying, if Anabel had a connection to Lucinda’s mystery man, a boyfriend would give us a place to start investigating. Especially if we could tie him to Clara, too.”

  Jamie was willing to play along with the subject change. “You’re still thinking about that H.C. from Lucinda’s diary?”

  “He’s our best suspect.” She gave a pointed paused. “Except for a certain spurned lover with a bad reputation, obviously.”

  “Anabel was no lover of mine. Setting aside her family’s lamentable IQs, her wig was quite off-putting.”

  “Everyone back then wore wigs.”

  “Just because a book told you that, doesn’t make it true. Take, for instance, that libelous tome Gregory Maxwell wrote about me being a killer.”

  She sent him an amused glance. “For real, it’s okay to tell me if that’s not your real hair. Even if you were bald, I’d still let you do naughty things to my naked body.”

  “I’m not wearing a wig, woman. How many times do I have to bloody say it?”

  She snickered, clearly wanting to tease him some more. As she turned a corner, though, something caught her attention. She stopped short and consulted Ned’s godawful map, again. Using that piece of rubbish, they were probably headed for the Mississippi River by way of the Himalayas, so it was no wonder she seemed confused. They’d have better luck searching for the North West Passage. “Okay, hold on. This part seems different.”

  “No doubt.” It would be a wonder if they could escape the maze before nightfall using all the random lines Ned drew. Jamie fully anticipated having to navigate their course home by the stars.

  “No, I mean I think there was once a wall here. See? Right there.” Grace pointed to some brickwork lining the edge of the path. “This used to be a little sitting area.”

  Jamie frowned and actually remembered that feature. He looked around, seeing the old arrangement of hedges in his mind. Plants had died and re-grown over the years, altering the landscape slightly, but it was all familiar to him. “The wall curved this way.” He made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “There was a gazebo, too. Couples used to stop here to steal a quick kiss.”

  …Sometimes more than a kiss.

  Grace sent him a suspicious frown and he smiled innocently at her. Not surprisingly, she wasn’t fooled. “You were kind of a pizza-tramp back then, weren’t you?”

  “I just hadn’t met the right girl.” That would take him another two-hundred and thirty odd years.

  She snorted at that and lifted the camera again
. Someone had painted the old bricks black, but it did nothing to hide the crime scene from Grace’s forensic magic. When she snapped a picture, the dark evidence of spatter of blood was visible to even Jamie’s untrained eyes.

  “You’ve found it.” He whispered, gazing at the small screen in awe. “This is where Anabel died.”

  “Dexter Morgan, eat your heart out.” Grace beamed up at him, delightfully proud of herself. “For real, how awesome am I at this job?”

  Chapter Twelve

  June 25, 1789- I should never want to be a man!

  The power we women hold in our hands is far too intoxicating.

  From the Journal of Miss Lucinda Wentworth

  The woman was back!

  Jamie’s body leapt to attention at the sight of her standing in his quarters. A moment before he’d been alone in his cabin on the Sea Serpent, taking bath. The next the woman was standing before him. He wasn’t sure how she’d just appeared and he really didn’t care. All that mattered was she’d returned to him.

  Joy filled him, his eyes drinking her in.

  Her dress was a great deal more normal, this time. A trifle old fashion, but it was no longer a scrap of fabric that barely shielded her soft body. Mores the pity. Her uncovered skin had been the stuff of epic poems and romantic odes. Even all buttoned up, though, he’d never seen a lovelier lass in his whole life.

  Maybe she truly was some otherworldly creature sent to tempt him. And it was bloody well working, because he would do anything the woman bid, so long as she stayed. Anything at all. She was the one he’d been searching for. He felt it deep in his bones.

  The one blessed thing in the whole universe that belonged just to him.

  “This isn’t the garden…” She turned to look at him, her eyes wide. “Jamie!” She swallowed. Sunlight shone through the porthole behind her, giving her an angelic halo. “Oh my God, you’re taking a bath.” She slapped a hand over her luminous eyes. “I’m sorry!”

  “I’m not.” Jamie got to his feet, his pulse pounding in his ears.