“Since the beginning of summer.”
“Were you going to tell me? In fact, when were you going to tell me he had a girlfriend?”
I pause mid-fold. I seriously hate my life. “He’s always dating someone.”
“And you never told me?”
“What do you want me to say here, Mom?”
“You should have told me.”
Irritation leaks into my veins. “Why? The only thing it was going to do was upset you.”
“You think I can’t handle it?” Mom shouts.
“No, I don’t!” I shout back. “I also didn’t tell you because I didn’t feel like listening to you and your friends chatting it up every Friday night like my feelings about it don’t matter!”
“Sawyer?” Lucy’s groggy voice stops us cold. She rubs her eyes then shuffles into the room.
“Did you have a bad dream?” I ask.
“No. I’m thirsty.”
So am I, for a jump. My cells itch with the need, but I breathe out and instead take my sister’s hand. Without looking at Mom, I thank God for Lucy’s interruption and walk her into the kitchen. I take out my phone, look up Knox’s number, and as soon as Lucy’s back in bed, I’ll call him. He said any day, at any time. I sure as hell hope he means it.
VERONICA
Interview number two: Dr. Kelly Wolfe, professor of history at Transylvania University, with personal interest and knowledge in Kentucky history, local folklore and ghost stories.
I write down all Dr. Wolfe just said about EVPs, then look up to find Sylvia doing the same. She glances up, catches me staring and offers an I’m-trying-here smile before returning her attention to Dr. Wolfe.
“Miguel and I are new to the project,” Sylvia says in a cheerful voice. Not one that’s fake, but real, and I like her for that. “So forgive us if we don’t quite understand all the ghost terminology like Sawyer and Veronica.”
Sylvia is a beautiful girl, stunning really. She’s smart, studious, so far has a flare for details and she’s nervous around me. I’m not nervous around her, and I think that freaks her out more. If I were in her shoes, I’d probably be uncomfortable, too. She’s been forced to join another group, to work on my chosen topic, and the last conversation we had, she told her friends that I eat Girl Scouts.
In the chair beside me at the coffee house in Lexington, Sawyer stretches out his legs and lays a hand along the back of my chair, his fingers caressing my shoulders. Sylvia’s eyes follow the motion. Not angry, not jealous … more like confused.
We’re all jam-packed together—five of us at an intimate table meant for possibly three. Considering everyone at this cramped table, except for me, was sired by giants, we’re all up close and personal.
Sawyer and I are particularly squished together. Our legs and arms brush along each other’s with every inhale. Each touch sending little zaps of electricity into my blood. For someone new to the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing, he’s very relaxed touching me in public—as if we’ve been dating forever and have had time to become very aware and comfortable with every part of the other. I’ll admit, I’m loving every delicious second. I feel so very … alive.
But it’s time for me to focus on our project and not how Sawyer’s fingertips are tracing seductive circles along one back of my neck. I turn my laptop around to show Dr. Wolfe the pictures Sawyer and I took at the bridge.
“Here are the pictures I told you about,” I say in reference to the email I sent her that helped with her agreeing to this interview.
Dr. Wolfe’s eyes narrow as she studies one picture then moves on to the next, studying the next one with the same excruciating precision. “I agree. These definitely look like orbs.”
I’m riding so high that it’s practically a miracle that my toes are touching the ground. I glance over at Sawyer and while he still wears skepticism like a second skin, he smiles at me.
Orbs are round balls of light anomalies that can represent spirits. We caught several in the same spot in the middle of the bridge, but my favorite picture is the one with the orb hovering next to Sawyer when I stole his camera from him. He looks so cute, as skeptical as he does now, and it’s brilliant that a spirit rode shotgun on his shoulder.
Sawyer, of course, dismissed it all as particles of dust, but the shapes are too perfect, too round, too bright. But even he, when we played the EVP of “He’s hurting” on the computer, had no explanation other than stunned silence.
Dr. Wolfe pushes the laptop back toward me. “I have to say I’m very impressed. It’s very difficult for even the most seasoned ghost investigator to capture actual active spiritual evidence like you have. Most times, people believe they are making contact, but instead are caught up in a residual haunting.”
Now everyone at the table is focused on Dr. Wolfe as I’m betting they are as lost as I am.
“What’s a residual haunting?” Sylvia asks.
“A residual haunting is when an event that is so traumatic, so emotional, happens and the energy created from the huge outpouring of emotion, most likely negative emotion, imprints onto the area. That emotion becomes a loop, replaying over and over again. It’s not an actual spirit, it’s a memory.”
When it’s clear we’re all dumfounded, she continues, “Think of the hauntings often associated with widow’s walks by the sea. Those ghosts appear at the same time of day and the apparitions do the same thing—whether it be they just appear staring out at sea or they walk along the same stretch of area then disappear. Sometimes there isn’t an apparition involved. Sometimes it’s the same sounds at the same time of day. Like the slamming of a door or—”
“Footsteps going down stairs,” Sawyer says.
We all glance at him. His smile is gone, his eyes serious, and I can tell he’s thinking of our house.
“Yes,” Dr. Wolfe says. “There is no communication with these phenomena as it would be the same thing as trying to have a conversation with people who belong to a memory in your head. Your memories, to you, are alive. You see them play out in radiant color. Sometimes you remember something so vividly that you can almost taste the air, feel a touch, or sense a presence. That’s what a residual haunting is like, only we all see the memory being replayed.”
“What I hear you saying,” says Miguel, “is that something so powerful happened that it can’t be forgotten?”
Dr. Wolfe looks at each of us before answering. “Yes, and it was so powerful that it literally reshaped the world surrounding it forever.”
* * *
Because Miguel has an SUV and a full tank of gas, he drove us into Lexington and then into Louisville. He and Sylvia in the front seat. Sawyer and I in the back.
I’ve been silent mostly, absorbing their easy banter with each other. Sort of like how Nazareth, Jesse, Leo and I used to be before Leo left for college. Their gentle jabs at each other, the jokes—the new and private ones, their laughter, the way they argue yet have each other’s backs makes me miss my friends.
It’s not like I don’t see them. I do, but not as much as they’re busy with life, and then there’s how I haven’t responded to Leo. Even though he still texts daily, begging for us to be friends again.
Sawyer squeezes my hand and I lift my lips as I look at him to let him know I’m okay. I give him and his friends credit, they’ve tried to include me, but they’ve been friends forever. I’m new, plus I’m the weird girl they gossip about. I officially have a better appreciation and respect for how Scarlett was brave enough to waltz back into Jesse’s life.
“Tell us more about this place.” Miguel takes a left when the light changes to green then looks at me in the rearview mirror. “What ghost are we hunting tonight?”
“Sometime around 1950 there was a couple who were going to a dance and they crashed their car when they missed the curve on Mitchell Hill Road. The legend says that people see a girl walking along the side of the road in a prom dress. She’s also been seen walking in the cemetery that’s at the top of the hill.”
“Probably because they crashed due to the boy’s stupidity, and then the boy was too lazy to go get help so she had to do it herself then died of disappointment,” Sylvia says.
I laugh. “Good one.”
“Thanks. I asked my parents about this place as Dad grew up in Louisville. He said that when he was a teenager, he had heard that if you saw the girl and pulled over she’d get in the backseat of the car and then disappear when you reached the cemetery.”
“Your dad knows about this?”
Sylvia turns all the way around, her long blond hair falling over her shoulder. “Yeah. He’s weirdly happy I’m doing this project. He said that one time in high school he and four of his buddies drove along the road trying to see the ghost and were hoping to pick her up.”
“And if they found her where was she going to sit?”
“Dad said he volunteered to let her sit on his lap.”
Our combined laughter, including me, feels good. As if I’m somehow part of their group and they want me there.
“Papá said he and his friends once went to Pope Lick trestle in Louisville to try to find the goat man.” Miguel follows the instructions on his GPS, turns onto Mitchell Hill Road and we begin the ascent up the hill. “I’ve heard all sorts of crazy stuff about that trestle. Why aren’t we checking that place out?”
“Because a goat man isn’t a ghost but a man who is part goat,” Sawyer says. “We’re trying to prove ghosts are real, not goat people.”
“True, true,” Miguel adds, and we fall into silence as Miguel’s motor lightly strains as we continue up the winding and steep hill.
We lost the friendly porch lights of neighborhoods over a mile ago. With the climb up, the foliage thickens. The limbs, heavy with the start of fall leaves, lean over the road, as if threatening to collapse and crush us.
The sky is dark, thick clouds racing along the windy night. A sudden break in the trees reveals the Louisville skyline in the distance and the miles and miles of neighborhoods below. It also discloses the steep, rocky drop. Miguel jerks the car more toward the center of the road as Sylvia gasps and holds on to the armrest of the door.
“Be careful,” she whispers. “Another car could whip around the curve and hit us head-on.” And push us off the road and over the cliff.
Miguel goes from driving one-handed to two.
The cliff. Sawyer’s drawn to the drop-off, his head resting upon the glass. I squeeze his hand, and when he glances over at me, I spot a glimpse of the war being fought inside him. I squeeze again, to let him know that while I don’t understand what must run through his head in moments like this, I can guess that it’s hard.
He leans away from the window, toward me, and we sit shoulder to shoulder. His lips gently brush against my temple as he squeezes my hand back.
“Can you imagine what it must have been like for the couple who died?” Sylvia says. “To have been going to a dance? To have spent all of that day excited, the hours spent picking out the dress? The anticipation of the magic that was going to happen and then the fear they must have felt when they realized they had lost control?”
“Don’t get too serious,” Miguel says. “None of this is real.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I say as I watch the side of the road for the girl. “The couple and the accident were real. There’s documentation in the county records about it. Sarah was a real girl and so was her boyfriend. They really did die in a crash on this road. Her family owns the cemetery at the top of the hill. Both she and her boyfriend are buried there.”
A heaviness descends upon the car. Sylvia glancing over at Miguel, him looking back quickly, the exchange saying that this is more than what they signed up for. Their fear, palpable.
“How do we want to play this out?” Miguel’s voice is deeply serious.
“The cemetery is at the top of the hill,” I say. “Park near there and we’ll look around.”
We take a hairpin curve and a large white blob shoots in front of the car. Miguel curses, Sylvia screams and the brakes of the SUV squeal as we whiplash to a stop. A strong arm slips in front of me, keeping me safely against the seat.
“What the hell was that?” Miguel shouts while Sawyers asks, “Is everyone okay?”
No one answers either question as we’re all stunned. Because whatever it was moved quickly, moved stealthily, and as fast as it appeared, it disappeared and no one wants to admit the fantastic obvious—that we just saw a ghost.
SAWYER
“Is everyone okay?” I ask again, as my pulse pounds in my ears.
Veronica’s eyes flash with excitement. “I’m great.”
Because she believes she saw a ghost. I don’t have to ask to know she’s now on level-ten-ghost-hunter mode. My friends, on the other hand, are shaken. “Sylvia, Miguel, are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” Sylvia says as she rubs her hands up and down her goose-fleshed arms.
“Yeah,” Miguel answers then mashes his lips together. He edges forward in his seat to look beyond the hood of his car and then toward the thick forest. “You saw that, right? I’m not losing my mind? There was something in the road.”
“I saw it,” Veronica says.
“Me, too,” Sylvia adds.
“It was probably a deer.” I lean my arms forward on the front-row seats and point at the road ahead. “We’ve all seen them before. The cemetery’s right up there. Park off to the side and we’ll get out and look around.”
“All famous words at the beginning of a slasher film,” Sylvia mutters.
Miguel parks off to the side, and Veronica’s out of the car in a shot, digital recorder in hand. Miguel and Sylvia, however, turn to look at me.
“Are we going to die here, vato?” Miguel asks. He’s kidding, and he’s not.
Veronica’s already across the street, in the cemetery, and I’ve already lost her in the darkness. Veronica has one mode—headfirst. While I typically respect that, I only love that quality when I can follow. “Stay in the car if you want.”
“And have Veronica tell the teacher that she did all the work?” Sylvia says. “No way.”
“Veronica’s not that way.” But it doesn’t matter what I say as Sylvia’s already out of the car. Miguel follows. I grab the camera and soon the three of us are knee-deep in high grass in a creepy-ass, dew-ridden cemetery at midnight with Sylvia skintight next to me. Sometimes, I question my life choices.
“Sawyer,” V calls. “Over here.”
I trudge forward through the wet grass and it doesn’t take long for my Nikes to become soaked. Veronica shines the flashlight of her cell down onto a broken gravestone. “This is Sarah’s stone.”
Beside me, Sylvia shivers. “What happened to it?”
“I read on blog posts that someone vandalized it,” Miguel says, and we all turn to stare at him. “Don’t look so surprised. I want an A as much as the rest of you.”
Without being asked, I call out into the night. “Sarah, Sarah’s boyfriend, whoever else is here, we’re not here to hurt you. We’re here to help. I’m going to take your picture if that’s okay.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Sylvia mutters. “Are you talking to ghosts?”
Veronica bounces on her toes. “Good job. Take some pictures around here, and I’m going to walk around the cemetery. There’s supposed to be a statue here that drag racers visit before they race down the hill. If you touch the statue’s hands and they’re cold, someone in your party is going to die.”
“I read about that, too,” says Miguel. “I’ll come with.”
“That’s stupid,” Sylvia says. “The statue’s hands are always going to be cold.”
Veronica doesn’t respond as she skips into the darkness, eager for the next discovery.
“Miguel,” I say. We stare at each other, a brief moment, and he nods his understanding. I car
e for Veronica and it will really piss me off if she falls down some deep, dark hole or is whisked away by some mountain man who has never seen a girl before. Miguel just promised to have her back.
I raise the camera and take a few shots of the tombstone with the flash on and then with the flash off. Then I start taking random shots throughout the cemetery.
“What are you doing?” Sylvia asks.
“Trying to capture spirit orbs.”
“Do you really believe in all of this?”
“No.” Click, click, click.
“Then why are you doing this project?”
“Because it’s what Veronica wanted to do.” I take a shot of Sylvia, and she’s not amused. I release a long breath and glance around to make sure Veronica’s nowhere near. “Why are you doing this project? You obviously aren’t happy here.”
Sylvia holds herself tight with her arms wrapped around her chest. “It’s scary.”
“What’s scary?”
She huffs like she’s annoyed. “Death, okay? Death is scary. Dead people are beneath our feet. Like, bones and decay, and those people were once alive and now they’re dead and I don’t know what happens to us when we die and I’m seriously uncomfortable with it all. Plus, it’s creepy that Veronica would want to do this project to begin with.”
I lower the camera, confused and unsettled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sylvia looks away from me, like she got caught, but I’m not letting it go. “What do you mean you think it’s creepy that Veronica is doing this project?”
“It’s a creepy idea is all.”
“And you think she’s weird regardless so that’s not what you mean.” Anger rolls through my veins. “Why are you part of my group, Sylvia? And don’t give me that bullcrap answer about you and Miguel not being able to pick a topic.”
Sylvia stares at the broken tombstone as if the sight breaks her heart. “Sarah deserves better than a broken tombstone.”
“She does, but that doesn’t answer my question. Did my mom tell you? Did she tell you what nobody else should know?”
Echoes Between Us Page 22
