The Midnight Ground

by Eric Dontigney

  I filled her in on what had happened. I started with what happened at the bar, which was met with a flinty-eyed glare. I moved on, quickly, to the car fiasco and trying to get out of town. I told her about the fire and Abby. Helena perked up as I talked about the accidents and the cancer. Then I told her about what happened at the hospital. I did my best to describe my experience with splintered time. I still didn’t have it entirely straight in my own head, so I had to go through that part several times before Helena was satisfied.

  “Enochian! What were you thinking? Do you have any idea what could have happened if the thing that showed up wasn’t in such a forgiving mood?”

  “Nothing good, I’m sure. Mostly I was thinking that I had to do something. I wasn’t overwhelmed by options at the time.”

  “No, I guess you weren’t. Still, the risk you took. It wasn’t just your life in the balance. And you wonder why people aren’t happy to see you.”

  I snorted. “I don’t wonder about that anymore.”

  Helena rubbed at her left temple. I supposed that tale would have given any sane person a headache. Her eyes took on an unfocused glaze and I could almost hear her shuffling through some mental filing system.

  “Fractal time,” she said, as if the idea was somehow familiar. Then she shook her head. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were cursed. What are the odds that you’d stop in a town where all of this was going on?”

  “Pretty damn slim,” I admitted. “I get the feeling that I didn’t wind up here by accident, which fills me with all kinds of unhappiness. I don’t like being manipulated that way. Any thoughts about what that shadow thing might be?”

  She shrugged. “Sure, lots of thoughts, but none that I’d be confident enough to stand by. What I don’t understand is what possible relevance this Abby girl can have to it. You said it yourself, she’s not powerful. It doesn’t even sound like she’s got any native ability.”

  “None at all. At least, none that I picked up on, and I was looking.”

  I shifted in the chair and the burn on my back gently reminded me it was there with a lightning bolt of pain. I leaned forward and grabbed the seat of the chair with both hands. I was overdue for another dose of painkiller.

  “What’s wrong?” Helena asked, anger forgotten in her innate empathy.

  “Back hurts,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Getting old?”

  “Got burned a little. At the house. Painkillers on the nightstand.”

  As I breathed through the pain, Helena got me a pill and filled up a little paper cup with water in the bathroom. She offered them to me and seemed taken aback when I bit the pill in half. I knocked it back with the water from the cup. She waited it out in silence until the medication took the worst edges off the pain.

  “Alright, hero, let me see the burn.”

  “It’s nothing,” I said.

  “Shirt. Off. It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.”

  I gave her a wan smile. “If you say so.”

  I stood, unbuttoned the shirt and took it off. She stared at the scars and tattoos. She hadn’t seen those before. She reached out and prodded some of the puffed up scar tissue with her warm fingers.

  “What the hell happened? Who did this to you, Adrian?”

  I shrugged and shook my head. “I honestly have no idea.”

  The anger built to explosion levels behind her eyes.

  “I swear to God, Helena. I have no memory of how this happened. There are stories, but you know how reliable those are.”

  “You’re like a child. You need constant supervision. Turn around.”

  I did as I was told. She peeled the bandage off and there was a pronounced silence behind me.

  “Got burned a little? Aren’t we still the master of understatement.”

  It wasn’t necessary, but Helena put another coat of antibiotic cream on the burn and a fresh bandage. Maybe it was her way of making amends for pushing so hard when she first showed up. Then again, maybe she would have done it for anyone. That was the thing about Helena, I never really knew her. I don’t think anyone ever really had. She was a child of magic, raised in its mysteries from birth and practiced in its secrecy. Secrecy has a way of bleeding into everything.

  She handed me my shirt. I felt her eyes on me as I buttoned the shirt and I looked up. There was a sense of expectancy around her, as if she was waiting for me to say something or do something. The moment passed before I had a chance to figure out what she expected. She picked her jacket up off the bed and slid into it. She looked thoughtful.

  “I hope you realize how bad this all is,” she said.

  I grunted. “Yeah, I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

  She struggled with something inside her own head before she came out with it, all in a rush. “You might not be able to save her.”

  I’d have expected that kind of talk from Daniel, but not from Helena. Maybe I didn’t know how bad things were, after all. My eyes wandered the barren walls of the cabin, looking for inspiration. I found none.

  “Maybe not. Are you saying I should walk away, like I did in Charleston?”

  She walked to the door and looked at me over her shoulder.

  “No, not unless you think you should. I’m saying you should prepare yourself for the idea that she may die, despite anything you or me or anyone else might do to protect her. These are deeper waters than you’re used to,” she said. “Did you bring it?”

  She was talking about the hard case.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Thank God for small favors. Try not to slip and kill yourself in the shower,” she said, and then added, “idiot.”

  Chapter 14

  As painful as I found seeing Helena again, I woke up the next day feeling better than I had since my arrival. There was something iconic about the idea of the person who stood alone against extraordinary odds, but it was one hell of a scary thing to actually be that person. Support, however grudging and angst-ridden, provided me a relief valve. It also gave me someone to talk to about the situation. I didn’t need to convince Helena about anything. I didn’t need to slalom around legal obstacles. She understood the threat to Abby, probably better than I did.

  In the realm of magical practitioners, I was the Johnny-come-lately journeyman to Helena’s master craftswoman. The big difference between me and her, between me and most practitioners, was that I operated in the world. I got press in the underground lines of communication that served to keep us all informed of what was happening in our rarified community. I had the unsettling impression that all that press gave people the idea that I was much better at magic than I actually was. My continued survival no doubt contributed to that impression, but the facts remained the facts. She was better than me, plain and simple.

  Having someone like that in my corner, or Abby’s corner anyway, did a lot of good for my optimism. It also freed me up to do some digging. At least it would after I introduced Helena to Abby and Paul. Helena had called at the crack of too early for human compassion to set up a time to meet at the hospital. We walked into the lobby together and rode the elevator in silence. For my part, silence seemed safer. The elevator doors slid open and we started down the hall. I was becoming a regular enough presence that one of the nurses gave me a smile that bordered on flirty. I grinned at her and Helena elbowed me hard in the ribs. I gave her a dirty look and she stopped in her tracks.

  “What?” I asked. The dirty look wasn’t that bad.

  “Good God, Adrian. Zero points for finesse, but full marks for amperage.”

  “Huh?”

  “You weren’t messing around. I mean, I knew what you did had to be strong, but you upped your game here,” said Helena.

  “Oh, yeah, I guess so.”

  Her unsolicited praise left me feeling a little unbalanced after the previous night’s emotional bloodletting. I changed the subject.

  “Any thoughts about how to approach this introduction?” I asked.

  She roll
ed her eyes at me. “Just get me in the room.”

  I walked her into Abby’s room and the teenager smiled at us. I was shocked at how much healthier she looked compared to the previous day. Paul was sitting next to her bed and he looked better as well, less beaten down, more like a vigorous sixty-year-old than a world-weary seventy-year-old.

  “Paul, Abby, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. This is Helena St. Clair.”

  That was the moment at which my participation in the conversation ended. When she wanted to, Helena blazed like a lighthouse in the darkness. She accomplished in three minutes of infectiously cheerful small talk what took me risking my life in a burning building to accomplish. She won their trust. After five minutes, I made some flimsy excuse no one really heard and slipped out of the room. I waited until I was sitting in my car before I punched in Patty’s number. I toyed with her card while I waited. After a few rings, Patty picked up. She sounded groggy.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Patty. This is Adrian Hartworth. Did I wake you up?”

  “Yes,” she said around a yawn. “What do you need?”

  “Do you know where Abby’s parents are buried?”

  There was a pregnant pause before Patty spoke again. “Why would you need to know that?”

  “Black magic. Conspiracies. The usual.”

  “You’re giving me an ulcer, Hartworth. Angel’s Rest Cemetery.”

  I jotted down some sketchy directions and thanked Patty before I hung up. I pondered that name, Angel’s Rest. Given everything I’d seen, I had my doubts about that one. I’d have been surprised if any of the dead were resting in that town. Or, if they were resting, I wondered how uneasy that rest proved. I pulled out of the hospital parking lot and, after a few wrong turns, found myself heading north. At first, I thought I was imagining it, but after a few miles I realized that a car was following me. I debated how to handle it and decided to do the easiest thing. I pulled over and parked on the side of the road.

  I got out of the car to make sure I wasn’t trapped in the vehicle if my follower planned me some ill. It also let me stare at the vehicle as it approached. I was surprised when the car pulled in behind mine and the sheriff got out. He was out of uniform, which made him look odd and incomplete to my mind. He wore jeans, heavy hiking boots, and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. His badge and gun were on his belt, though. I gave him a wary nod.

  “Sheriff Barnes,” I said.

  “Mr. Hartworth,” said Barnes as he leaned against my car.

  He dropped an elbow on the roof and his right hand hung over the side. It was his gun hand. I relaxed a little. The sheriff noticed and chuckled a little.

  “For a man who isn’t in any trouble that I’m aware of, you’re pretty twitchy.”

  “Being followed makes me nervous. It didn’t work out so well for me once upon a time.”

  Barnes lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t pursue my comment. “Most people don’t even notice they’re being followed. You seemed to pick up on it pretty fast.”

  “Couldn’t comment on how normal it is,” I dodged.

  A pickup rolled by and the sheriff gave the driver a casual wave. I saw then how we must look, just a couple of guys shooting the breeze. What could look less comment-worthy than the sheriff out of uniform, leaning on a car and shooting friendly waves at passing drivers? They probably thought we were talking about the best place to hook a trout or something else I’d know even less about. Barnes wanted to talk about something, but he didn’t want to do it officially.

  “Patty tells me that old man Simmons and his granddaughter have taken quite a shine to you.”

  I shrugged and then nodded. “Yeah, seems like. I’m sure it’ll wear off once she’s feeling well enough to get out of the hospital. They’ll have too much on their plate to be interested in me. Didn’t see any harm in sticking around. Good for Abby’s morale and all that.”

  The sheriff nodded in all the right places to my bullshit answers, which I was pretty sure he knew were bullshit answers. There was nothing obvious to give it away, just a sense that he was going through the motions.

  “She’s a sweet kid,” said the sheriff. “Had more than her fair share of misery. I only mention it so you’ll understand my meaning when I say that I’d take it personal if more fell on her head.”

  I searched the sheriff’s face and tried to tease out his meaning. I had no earthly idea what he was on about. What’s more, he seemed to know that I was utterly lost. His face lost its guarded casualness and became unforgiving stone.

  “There’s a breed of so-called men in the world that look at someone like Abby and they don’t see a child.”

  Once he spelled it out, my brain did the rest. Guy pushing into middle age takes an ongoing interest in a teenage girl. With the world the way it was, it would have been hard for a cop not to at least wonder about it a little. Hell, if I was just a casual observer, I would have wondered about it. I was still disgusted by the implication, however reasonable it looked on the outside. I opened my mouth to tell the sheriff where he could shove his innuendos, but he raised a hand.

  “Don’t bother telling me to go fuck myself. I didn’t have you pegged that way, but I had to know. Christ, I hate this job some days.”

  “Why are you so sure now?”

  “I practically had to draw you a picture, Hartworth. It’s very damned hard to fake a total lack of understanding. No offense, but you’re not much of an actor.”

  “True,” I conceded.

  “That’s how I know you’ve got more than a passing curiosity. You didn’t before, but you do now. There’s oddness swirling. That stuff with the electricity at the hospital. Patty taking a second look at that fire. You’re dangerously close to making things interesting here.”

  “It’s not me making things that way. I think you know that. The same way I think you know I’m trying to help that girl.”

  The sheriff dropped his eyes to the ground and seemed to gather his thoughts. I’d have given a pretty penny to be able to peek into that thought process. I was confident he had a lot of information tucked away in that head that could have cleared things up for me. It was probably information he didn’t understand without the necessary context. If I tried to give him that context, I expected I’d get a police escort to the county line. I kept my mouth shut. Barnes didn’t look up when he spoke.

  “Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t, but she isn’t the only person that lives here. I got three thousand souls in this town I’m responsible for and a damn sight more in the county. You stirring up whatever you’re stirring up doesn’t seem to be helping all of them very much.”

  That idea had never crossed my mind. I’d been entirely focused on Abby’s plight, but the sheriff had a point. Other people lived in that town who were probably just as innocent as Abby. I was meddling and, as Helena pointed out, the waters were much deeper than I normally hazarded. I nodded.

  “I think I understand your position. I’ll tell you what, sheriff, the minute I think things will be better if I leave, I will. I’m not looking to get anyone hurt.”

  Barnes looked up at me then. “I’ll hold you to that, Mr. Hartworth.”

  I stayed quiet in case he wanted to add something, but he didn’t. I got back into my car and started it up. Barnes knocked on the window. I rolled it down and looked up at him.

  “Mind if I ask what you’re looking for up at Angel’s Rest?”

  “How do you know that’s where I’m going?”

  He laughed. “That’s the only thing out this way. That and some fallow fields. You don’t strike me as much of an outdoorsman. That leaves the graveyard.”

  “Flawless deduction. I’m looking for…”

  What was I looking for? I didn’t even know. A trail, a breadcrumb, or a helpful spirit that would tell me exactly what I was up against? All of it seemed to start with Abby’s parents, so I wanted to start with them. Maybe it was pointless to go up to the graveyard, but graveyards were a kind of way station, a starting
line and a finish line all rolled up into one. It was the finish line for Abby’s parents in this life, but I hoped it would be a starting line for saving hers.

  “Mr. Hartworth?”

  “I guess you could say I’m looking for insight.”

  “Insight into what?”

  “I’m not sure yet. If you listen close enough, sometimes, the dead will surprise you with a secret or two.”

  I thought the sheriff might laugh or roll his eyes, but he looked thoughtful. “Yeah, I guess that sometimes they do surprise you that way.”

  I wished that I had a better read on the sheriff. There was something behind the slow drawl, country sheriff routine. Like maybe he’d seen something that belonged to my world rather than the orderly, explicable world of the everyday. He must have seen something of that question on my face.

  “World’s full of ghosts, Mr. Hartworth. You don’t work in law enforcement as long as I have without picking up a few. Usually the victims of crimes you didn’t solve. They haunt you.”

  I almost asked him, right then, if he was being figurative, but I lost my nerve. He turned to go to his own car and then stopped. He spoke without looking back.

  “I hope you find your insight.”

  I thought he even meant it.

  Chapter 15

  According to the brass plaque next to the gate, Angel’s Rest Cemetery was established in 1894 and maintained by an endowment from the estate of Everett Jeremiah Cavanaugh III. As I walked through the wrought iron gate and into the cemetery proper, I wondered about the lives of all the people buried there. Had they been good people or bad people, and did the cemetery care either way? Probably not, I decided. The ground gets us all in the long run and her embrace doesn’t discriminate.

  The headstones closest to the entrance were also the oldest. Most were made of limestone and it showed. More than a century’s worth of weather and acidic rain created separation in the layers of rock. The surface layers peeled away slowly, but surely, and obscured the names and dates. Compared to older graveyards, where that process left grave markers all but unreadable, the headstones in Angel’s Rest only looked weathered. Still, the cemetery was clearly being cared-for on a regular basis. The grass was mowed and no weeds clustered around any of the graves, even the oldest ones.