Every Death You Take Page 5

  “I’m in the dark. So dark.” With her eyes closed, she reached out to Mikey, who was right there. As their fingers brushed through each other, a spark of light ignited, then faded.

  “Can you go back farther? Go back to hopscotch with the children whom you are watching. Go back to the pleasure before we move forward again to the darkness. Where do you live?”

  “Eighty-Nine Sycamore.”

  Right down the street from Mrs. F. Was that why she had recognized her and started screaming?

  “Is Eighty-Nine Sycamore a good place? Is it happy?” Jackson’s tone had mellowed to almost a low song, lulling her to sleep, lulling her back.

  Heck, it almost lulled Mel to do the same thing. Becker came up and put a hand on her shoulder, grounding her.

  “Yes, it’s good to be home. Mom makes the best chocolate chip cheesecake for special occasions and likes to entertain as often as possible. I pretend not to like it, but really I do. I want to fit in with my friends, who all seem to hate their parents, and I want to do teenage things, but I’m just not built like that. So I make cheesecake with my mom and spend as much time with her as possible.”

  Mel watched as a smile lit Eileen’s face. The spark got brighter where her fingers touched Mikey’s.

  “This is good. Now move forward. What do you do?”

  “I babysit for money. I like the kids, and their parents are always super nice about making sure the food I like is in the refrigerator when I come over. They like that I play with the kids instead of watching TV the whole time. They tell their friends, and then I’m booked up a lot. I wish I had more time to watch my favorite shows, but maybe I can save up and get a VCR so I can tape everything. They’re mega-expensive, but it would be a nice gift for my mom and dad, too.”

  “This is also good. Now move forward.”

  “I have a boyfriend. He’s nice. I’m at college but home on spring break and watching the kids. After I got home, all I could think about was going out with him. He’s taking me to dinner.”

  “Dinner was nice. I can tell from the smile on your face. Did you go home that night?”

  “Of course. My parents wait up for me so they know I’m safe.” Her forehead crinkled. “I’m normally safe. But my car broke. Something is wrong.”

  Mel stood in the doorway, watching Eileen cringe on the couch as she replayed the memories, and she wanted to stop her. Did she die in a car accident? Did her car go off the road and no one ever found her? Mel stepped forward to stop the regression. Jackson looked at her and shook his head.

  “This has to happen,” he said quietly.

  “My car breaks, and I don’t see a pay phone. I’m going to have to walk, but that’s okay. It’s not far.”

  “And move forward.” Jackson leaned in.

  “It hurts. My chest feels like it’s on fire.” She began coughing and shaking like she was actually living the moment. Mel couldn’t stop herself from running over.

  Mikey put up his hand, and it was if an invisible shield kept Mel back. Not that she could have physically done anything, since they were all ghosts, but the pain in the room was almost too much to bear.

  “Please stop this, Jackson,” Mel pleaded

  “It’s gone too far. I can’t help her unless we get to the part where her spirit separates from her body.”

  Tears made warm tracks down Mel’s face. She turned into Becker’s arms and buried her face into his chest, felt him breathing, and was calmed. The girl was already dead. There was nothing that would bring her back, but Mel would be damned if she didn’t find out who did this to a young woman whose biggest wish was to buy a VCR—and instead she died. But from what?

  “What happens next?” Jackson asked.

  Eileen flinched on the couch, her color going from gray to almost invisible.

  “Hold her, Mikey. She’s almost there. If we lose her now, I might not be able to get her back. She’ll be lost between worlds.”

  “Stay with me,” Mikey begged quietly. “It’s never easy to remember your death, but it’s important, so you can be free. I was homeless with no one to care. Someone stole my watch and my coat and then kicked me so hard I died. They left me there until someone else found me by accident. No one paid to bury me, so I got put into a pauper’s grave with pennies over my eyes.”

  “I can’t. I can’t relive it. It hurts.”

  “You can. I know you can. You’re strong. Stay with me.”

  A moment later her color came back up, and Mel vowed then and there to find out who had done what to her and who had hurt Mikey. Vengeance might not be possible, but finding her body and putting her to rest would go a long way toward making this right. And as for Mikey, she would get those pennies and polish them until they shone. He deserved that and so much more.

  She had no idea how she was going to make it all happen, but something would come to her.

  “Why does your chest feel like it’s on fire, Eileen?” Jackson asked.

  Through the front window, Mel witnessed a fire erupting on the small square of grass she jokingly called her front lawn in this dirt-packed junkyard. What the hell?

  Every living thing ran outside, along with several of the ghosts.

  “Fire extinguisher!” Mel yelled.

  “I already have it.” Becker handed her the red canister. Quickly, she used it to spray the small fire, trying to spot any other blazes, or if it had spread anywhere else. Flames were a major concern out here. If things burned, ghosts would be displaced.

  In only a few moments the fire was out. Mel looked around, just in case anything else was aflame. Where had it come from? It had been easy enough to put out. She wasn’t complaining, but something felt wrong.

  “You don’t think we have someone here trying to take over your operation again, do you?” Becker asked. “I put that fire extinguisher in the front closet just in case of something like this.”

  Mel kissed him hard, then looked at the scorched patch of grass again. “I have no idea, but I am so pissed right now that anyone who wants a piece of me had better be ready to have their asses handed to them.” Looking around one more time, she was satisfied at not seeing anything else aflame. “Why does stuff like this keep happening? And how does a fire just ignite on its own? I need a cookie.”

  They all trooped back into the house. Mel ducked her head into the parlor just to make sure they hadn’t lost Eileen to the space between worlds when they’d all run out. But she and Mikey sat quietly talking on the couch. Jackson watched the interchange but had stopped the questions for the moment.

  “We’ll be right back,” she said to him.

  “No rush. She’s not going anywhere just yet. She has a connection, and that can be just as good as an object.”

  Mel saluted him before walking through to the kitchen. Mrs. Hatchett was just going to have to be okay with giving up some of her sugary booty.

  “I’ll get the milk,” Becker offered and took down the cookie jar after retrieving the plastic container of yummy goodness. “Mrs. Hatchett, do you mind if we have a few cookies?” he asked politely.

  “Of course not, my dear boy. As long as Mel plans on making more, the cookies are always yours to have. I like the smell, they make me feel homey, but I wouldn’t want them to go stale.” She even smiled at him.

  Mel stood with her hands on the hips of her frilly skirt and her mouth hanging wide open. “Why is it that he can have cookies, but I get the evil eye every time I reach in?” So unfair.

  “Becker asks nicely and is gentle. You bump around here like you’re in some kind of race. Take moments, sweet Mel, not leaps.”

  Scolded by a ghost. Next thing she knew she’d have a parade of them telling her all the things she did wrong on a daily basis.

  Mel flounced out of the kitchen, cookie in hand, and decided she would not return until much later. If she was gentle with the cookie container, it would be because she wanted to be, not because she’d just been shamed by an apparition.

  “You know she
just does that to you because she can, right?” Becker munched on his own cookie. “If you didn’t react to her, she’d be far more cordial.”

  Mel laughed. “I’m aware of that, but it’s a game we’ve played for years. I can’t imagine being all nice to her all the time. It makes her happy to scold, and I provide that opportunity. So we’re both happy. If I don’t make it look good, though, she’ll catch on to the fact that I’m not really mad.”

  “Cheeky.”

  “Smart.”

  “And cheeky and lovely.” He leaned in for a kiss, and she stole his other cookie.

  “Let’s go see what everyone is up to. Maybe we can get some more info and then make some decisions. I’m feeling the need to find the people who hurt Mikey and Eileen and kick some ass.”

  “You don’t want to go to jail. What would we all do without you?” Becker said.

  She was still laughing when she walked into the parlor to see what everyone was up to. Only she found Eileen standing in her catatonic state again, her whole body drooping, her eyes lost, and her glow fading.

  Chapter Nine

  “What happened? I thought we were making progress,” she asked to the room in general, hoping someone might be able to answer her question.

  Mikey was the first to step forward, though he kept a hand on the faded Eileen. “She was okay and started walking around looking at things. I can’t seem to get her to stop looking at this necklace.”

  Mel’s mom had taken some of the more expensive-looking pieces of jewelry and had put them into a case like a jeweler’s. She had tiaras, pearls, diamonds, rings, earrings, emeralds, brooches, and necklaces. Mel had always wanted to play with them when she was in her pre-teen dress-up stage, but her mother had taught her to respect the fact that certain ghosts did not want to be touched. Mel had talked in front of the case to them until a few had come out and let her try them on. She’d never touched the others, not even to clean them.

  “Which necklace?”

  Mikey pointed, and her breath caught in her throat. It was a necklace she’d never been able to touch. The one time she’d tried had been two years after she’d started talking to the ghosts and trying things on. They liked to come out of the case and be paraded around, to be played with and admired. But that necklace had burned her fingers. She had a small scar on her pinky because she’d picked it up and it had burned hot as a flame on the stove, scorching her hand until she’d dropped it. There was still a small scorch mark from it on the Oriental rug under the case. Her mother had put her hand under cold water and warned her to touch only the things she was given permission to touch. Then she’d held her on her lap and rocked her to sleep.

  “That necklace,” Mel said.

  “Yes, that necklace,” Mikey answered, though it had been a statement, not a question.

  Mel stepped closer to the case, between it and Eileen. “What do you see?” she asked the young woman.

  “That was mine. Whoever had that necklace must have made my chest burn, because I was wearing it on the night my car broke down.” Her monotone was almost as frightening as the way she’d shut off completely. What must be going through her mind?

  Mel opened the case and considered risking the burn again, just to take it out. She thought better of it at the last second. “The book! I’ll grab it and see who it belongs to!”

  The doors banged shut, blocking her into the parlor with everyone else. When she turned back, the necklace glowed orange, and tendrils of smoke rose from the satin cushion her mother had placed under the necklace all those years ago.

  “Quick! Open the windows,” Mel shouted.

  Becker tried, but nothing was budging. The smoke grew denser in the case.

  “Oh, my God. If that thing ignites, we might not be able to put it out so easily. We’ll die in here if there’s no way for us to get out!” Mel sought out the arms of Becker and pulled the dog with her.

  Her house, everything in it, it would all go up in flames…

  “My watch,” Becker said, pulling it from his pocket. “Grandpa, can you help?”

  The dapper old man emerged from the pocket watch Becker carried everywhere with him.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t fight something I can’t see, and this one has a will strong enough to have killed himself.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Eileen sobbed. “I wish I’d never woken up. Look what I’ve done to everyone.”

  The smoke vanished, and standing in the center of the room was a man with haunted eyes. He was a ghost, but his presence seemed to suck the very air from the room. Sadness and anger soared to the ceilings, suffocating in their mass. This was worse than a fire. Mel gasped and gripped her knees as she bent over.

  “Uncle John?”

  The stranglehold broke. Mel breathed in and made sure that Mumford and Becker were okay.

  “What the hell was that?” she said, facing the man in the middle of the room.

  “I don’t know,” Eileen said, floating toward him.

  Mel went to reach for her, but Becker held her back.

  “Don’t hurt her. Never hurt her again,” Eileen said in a soft voice, filled with anguish. “I remember.”

  Tears streamed down the older man’s face. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Please believe me. I never meant to hurt you.”

  “But you…” Eileen trailed off, clutching her chest. “You shot me.”

  “I thought you were an intruder.”

  “I came to your house because my car broke down, and I wanted to see if you could help me. You were closer than my parents. And you shot me.”

  He gripped the tie at his neck and pulled hard, agony etched deep into his face. “I’m so sorry.”

  “But why didn’t I wake up? Why didn’t I go to heaven? Why am I just now coming here after almost thirty-five years?”

  “That I can answer,” Becker’s great-grandfather said, stepping forward. “But before I do, I’d like to give your uncle a chance to redeem himself.”

  “Redemption?” the man roared. “There is no redemption. How can I ever redeem myself? I killed my niece, my only niece, the girl my brother and sister-in-law adored, the girl I adored. I cut her life off because I thought she was an intruder, and then I hid her because I couldn’t face what I’d done. I tried to kill myself that night, and it didn’t work. That took another ten years of self-indulgence, of making sure I was never at rest. Ten years of torture, until I finally stepped in front of a train with her necklace in my hand.”

  Everyone stopped breathing; even those who didn’t have to breathe anymore did not move an inch. He’d killed her, thinking she was an intruder. He’d killed her and then hidden her, and something Dougal had done during his cleaning must have stirred up her soul.

  “Take me,” the uncle pleaded. “Someone take me and send me to Hell. I can’t be here, I can’t face this, and I’d rather suffer endless torture than stay another minute with her accusation staring me in the face.”

  “You’ve already been in Hell, son,” Great-Grandpa said, stepping forward. “There is no choice in where you go when you’re sent. We don’t decide that here; it’s done on a higher plane than even I have touched. I can send you on if you want, but why don’t you first tell us where your niece is buried so we can give her the same choice?”

  ****

  Back to Mrs. F’s they went. Mel had no excuse this time and instead simply said that she was wondering if she could take Becker on a tour of the beautiful old house. He oohed and ahhed in all the right places, but Mel really wanted to get out to the outbuilding where John Ferguson had disposed of his niece. He’d told her parents that she’d run away after stopping at his house to tell him how unhappy she was. He’d brought her car to this very junkyard, hoping to hide it. It sat in the back lot, stripped of its tires, home to a family of mice who liked the interior. The brake lines had been bad, the oil running low, according to the record her grandfather had kept at the time. Eileen had died in an accident, an unfortunate and ho
rrible accident, and now they were going to consecrate the ground where he had disposed of her body with lye.

  “How on earth are we going to do this?” Mel asked Becker. They waved to Mrs. F, who stood on the back porch, as they made their way to the old carriage house. “What if it’s concrete now? I can’t ask Mrs. F to break up her garage to consecrate the dirt.”

  “Your mom said it’s the intention and not the actual dirt that matters. My great-grandfather agreed. Just do your best. We’ll see what happens.”

  Standing in the carriage house with Becker, Mel said the words, sprinkled the holy water and the herbs, and consecrated the ground where a girl had died who should have lived a long, long life.

  Mel needed a hug when it was over, and Becker gave her one without being asked. Leaning into him, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue with this. Being bombarded with the emotions in here, the anger of John, the fear of Eileen, the senseless death, and the cover-up were almost too much for her. Maybe she had been safer when she’d walled everyone off and just kept to herself. But then she looked into Becker’s eyes and knew she would never be able to go back. And that was okay.

  “You ready to leave?” he asked.

  “We’re done here, and yes. Let’s go say goodbye to Mrs. F. I wonder if this will keep the spirits from becoming restless when her family visits now. I wonder if that’s what stirs them up, the unrest in the house compounded by the death that happened that was never acknowledged.”

  “It’s very possible.”

  She hugged him tighter. “Thanks for being here with me.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, Mel. Nowhere else but by your side,” he wheezed out.

  Laughing, she let go. Then she sobered. “What are we going to do about Eileen?”

  “We’ll know when we see her.”

  ****

  Back at the house, Mel ate another cookie that Mrs. Hatchett offered her and sat with her mom for a few minutes before facing the parlor again.

  Becker stroked her arm as they entered the room. “Why don’t we ask Eileen if she needs closure to be able to move on? That might be a good place to start.”