Ghost Walk (4 page)

Even
a normal girl like Grace had been taken in by the charisma of the man.  His
eyes in that picture had glinted with adventure and charm.  They promised that he
was Robin Hood.  Jack Sparrow.  Dean Moriarty.

…And
those same eyes were staring at her right now.

Oh
God.

This
wasn’t happening again.  She wasn’t going to lose her mind
again
.  No
way.  If she just told herself that he wasn’t real and willed him away, he’d
disappear.

Except
the guy didn’t disappear.

Grace’s
vision waivered in panic and she began to hyperventilate.  Was she going
crazy?  She had to be.  For the past year, she’d been terrified of this and now
it was finally happening.  Insanity.  She took a staggering step backwards, her
mind racing.  The stress had finally fried her circuits and now she was
hallucinating infamous historical figures.

“I
see ya are becoming vexed, but you must listen to me.”  The guy who looked
waaay
too much like Jamie Riordan stepped closer to her, quickly closing the distance
she’d created.  His gaze was frantic now, like he was afraid to even blink for
fear she’d disappear.  “You’re the one I’ve been waiting for.  You can’t be
leaving me, lass.  I need your help.”

She
gave her head a frenzied shake.  “You aren’t real.”  She whispered, her eyes
locked on his way-too-real-seeming face.  “This isn’t happening.  I just need
to think about peaceful green cornfields and you’ll go away.”  Her parents’
farm was still the place she returned to in her mind when she was stressed. 
Her therapist had told her it was all about “centering” herself, but mostly it
was about Grace wanting to recapture an elusive feeling of safety.

“
Cornfields?
 
Are ya mad?”

“Apparently,
yes!
  I am!  I’m seeing you and you’re not really here!”

Blackbeard
waved that aside.  “Of course I’m here.  Donea be daft.  We must
talk
. 
Well,
I
must talk and you must listen.  I have been
screaming
for
someone to listen to me for centuries.”

“Peaceful
green cornfields.  Peaceful green cornfields.  Peaceful green…
Why aren’t
you going away!
”

“I’m
not going
anywhere!
”  He loomed over Grace, like he was instinctively
trying to get as close to her as he could.  “Two hundred years I’ve waited in
this dismal place.  I need
help
and you’re here to provide it.  I’m not
leaving your side, woman.”

Grace
squeezed her eyes shut and tried harder to find her calm place.  The pressure
of
not
finding it just added to her growing anxiety and made it all the more
impossible find.  “Peacefulgreencornfields, peacefulgreencornfields, peacefulgreencornfields.”

“Would
you bloody
stop
that?!”

“Are
we sure this is part of the tour?”  The frat guy’s girlfriend asked no one in
particular.  “The guide lady is acting kinda wiggy.”

The
rest of the group clearly agreed with that diagnoses, edging away from Grace
like she might be contagious.  Their wary looks weren’t helping her feel frigging
peaceful!

“I’m
not insane.”  She snapped at them, mostly trying to convince herself.  “I just
can’t be around stress. 
That’s
what this is about.  I’m under too much
stress and it’s manifesting in some kind of Colonial-era delusion.”

“
You’re
feeling stressed?  Try being dead, woman!”

“You’re
not even real!  I told you, you’re just a
delusion
.  And don’t call me
‘woman!’”

The
tour group exchanged nervous looks, wondering if they should make a run for it.

“Listen
to me.”  The delusion laid a hand against his chest, obviously trying to appear
sincere.  “This is really happening.  It i
s
.  I’ll explain it to you,
alright?”  He nodded like he had some magic words that would suddenly make
everything logical and clear.  If the real Jamie Riordan had been half so convincingly
earnest, the lynch-mob never would have executed him in the first place.  “I’m not
a delusion.  I’m a
ghost
.”

Grace
gave a high-pitched laugh at that lunacy.  “Oh, of course you are!”

“It’s
true.  My name is Captain James MacCleef Riordan.  I was hanged in this accursed
town on July 4, 1789, for crimes I didn’t commit.”  He gestured towards the oak
tree stump.  “I was
framed
for killing those girls and I’ve been stuck
here ever since.  I swear it.  Ya have to assist me in finally clearing my
name.”

“No,
no, no, no, no.”  Grace kept backing away from him.  “I don’t have to do
anything, except my deep breathing exercises.  This is all inside my head.  You’re
a manifestation of my anxiety and my weird fixation with that stupid picture.”

She
should have known her obsession with that painting would lead to badness.  Her
first sex dreams had been about a murderer.  No wonder she was so screwed up.

Jamie
Riordan (No,
not
Jamie Riordan!) moved closer again.  “Mistress Rivera,
please
. 
You were clearly sent to me for a reason.  I’m not going to hurt you.  I
couldn’t, even if wanted to.  Regain your equilibrium and everything will begin
to…
watch out!
”

Grace
was passed the point of even hearing him.  She had to get out of there before
she had a complete meltdown.  As she retreated, the heel of her old time-y shoe
wedged between two of the street’s cobblestones.  Caught off-guard, Grace
toppled backwards, her arms pin-wheeling for purchase.

“Shit!” 
The-delusion-who-maybe-wasn’t-a-delusion reached out to try and grab her as she
fell.  Instead of catching hold of Grace and steadying her, his fingers passed
right through her wrist with a strange jolt of energy.  She hit the ground, her
skull whacking against the pavement.  Stars flashed in front of her eyes.

The
very last thing she saw before the world went dark was Jamie Riordan’s stunning
face hovering over hers, his patriot blue eyes bright with concern.  “Donea
leave me, lass.”  He said very clearly.  “You have no idea how long I’ve waited
for you.”

June 20, 1789-  HC snuck in to see me last night,
after the Ball.  I woke up with my hands tied to the bedposts and his mouth
between my thighs.  He seemed intent on punishing me for dancing with JMR (He
quite detests the Pirate!) and I was begging him for forgiveness by the end.  I
cannot even write all the wicked things he did to my body while I was
helpless.  I’m sure Eugenia knows what we did and the gloomy little prude knows
that
I
know that she knows, which makes it all the more delicious.

It
was quite a marvelous evening!

From
the Journal of Miss Lucinda Wentworth

“I
wish you’d let the ambulance take you to the hospital, just to check you out.” 
Mrs. Anita Beauregard-Smythe frowned, visions of lawsuits dancing in her head.  “You
really don’t look well and our insurance provider is very clear about getting timely
doctors’ reports.”

As
head of Harrisonburg’s tour office, Anita was visibly worried about what the
guests’ comment cards would say if one of her guides had a psychotic break.  With
lacquered blonde hair fixed in a permeant bubble and a face that never lost its
empty smile, Anita had probably been born in her middle-aged pants suit.  She couldn’t
care less about the welfare of her employees, although she tried to cover that bean-counting
callousness with Southern manners.  Under the phony empathy and flawless make-up,
her only real focus was ruling her office fiefdom with an iron fist.

“I
don’t need to go to the hospital.”  Grace assured her.  “I’m fine.”  She pointedly
refused to look at the delusion of Jamie Riordan, who was now lounging in the
corner of the Harrisonburg Guest Relations Center.

Housed
in a two hundred year old building, the inside of the space was a modern mess,
filled with computers and overflowing files.  At nine o’clock in the evening,
Anita and Grace were the only ones left in the office, which was a block from
the center of town.  The delusion of Jamie Riordan had smugly informed her that
it used to be a brothel.

Not
that she was listening to him.

Since
she’d regained consciousness, Grace had done her best to ignore the big,
handsome evidence of her insanity and it was clearly pissing him off.  His
gorgeous face was set in an irritated expression, as if
she
was the one
being unreasonable.  The man wanted to talk.  He
loved
to talk.  Since
she seemed to be the only person who could hear his constant talking, he kept
up a running commentary to her, whether she responded to him or not.

And
she
wasn’t
responding to him.

No
way.

“How
much longer do you plan to tolerate this horrible woman, lass?”  He demanded as
Anita
subtly
mentioned that she’d had to give refunds to everyone on the
Ghost Walk and didn’t Grace think it was just a
little
unfair to expect
Harrisonburg to pay for Grace’s mistakes.

Grace
pretended that he wasn’t there.  If she just ignored him, Thomas
Payne-in-the-ass (minus the
Common Sense
) would just go away.  He
had
to.  Darn it, she
refused
to go crazy, again.  “I can reimburse you for
the tour admissions, Anita.”

“Well,
I
do
think that would be the right thing to do.  But the guests were
also saying that you were talking to yourself.”  Anita continued in a
disapproving tone that she tried to pass off as worry over Grace’s wellbeing.  “That’s
very troubling, in light of your history.  Were you seeing things, Grace?”

“No. 
Of course not.  I think my electrolytes were just low.”

“That’s
it, lass.  Donea tell her anything that will get you locked up.  You’ll be of
no help to me trapped in an asylum.”

Grace’s
lips compressed into a line, but she still didn’t acknowledge him.

Anita
made an “umm” sound, not convinced by Grace’s denials.  “Are you
sure
you
weren’t experiencing anything… odd?  You’ve been under a lot of stress this
past year.  And then there’s your family’s… business.  No one would blame you
if you’re having a few… problems.”

Faux-Jamie
scoffed at all the pointed pauses.  “See?”  He waved a dismissive (but beautifully
shaped) hand at Anita’s faux-concern and faux-sympathy.  “She thinks you’re off
your head.  Convince her everything’s alright so we can be going.”

“I’m
fine
, Anita.”  Grace adjusted her icepack with a bit more force than
necessary.  Visualizing a safe and happy place was supposed to help with
anxiety, but no amount of peaceful green cornfields could stop the throbbing in
her skull.  “I just need to drink more water.”

“I’m
sure that’s it.”  Anita obviously
wasn’t
sure that was it.  “It’s shaping
up to be a sweltering Independence Day, isn’t it?”  She patted Grace’s arm.  “Things
will be
so
hectic here over the holiday.  Take tomorrow off and
recuperate.  You can come back for the weekend, rested and ready to go.  I
think that would be best, don’t you?”  It wasn’t a question.

Grace
ground her teeth together at the loss of a day’s pay.  “Of course.”

Her
answer was totally unnecessary.  Anita was already moving on to her real
priorities.  “And you have a point.  With the temperatures so high, we’ll sell
record amounts of bottled water this weekend on the tours.  I’ll just go make a
note to order even more.”  She headed for her private office.  “You can get
home on your own, can’t you, Grace?”  She called over her shoulder and then
shut the door after her, without waiting for an answer.

Grace
sighed.

“Do
you truly plan to stay working for that harridan, lass?  Jesus, Mary and
Joseph, I’d rather be dead and I
am
dead.  You should grow a backbone. 
Walk out of this place and never come back.”

On
some level, she agreed with his disapproving analysis.  This job wasn’t for
her.  She was terrible at it and very, very bad at confrontations.  Everyone knew
that.  Great-Uncle Devotion once told her she could lose an argument with a
stuffed jackalope.

As
a crypto-taxidermist, Devotion had a lot of time on his hands to think up
witticisms like that.  Most of them involved some kind of non-existent animal
he was just waiting to discover, hunt down, and pose with on
National
Geographic’s
cover.  Dev’s fondest wish was to shoot a unicorn.  In this
case, though, her crazy uncle was probably right.  Grace was stuck in a life
that didn’t quite fit.  Not a single part of it made her happy.

Unfortunately,
after Grace’s breakdown, Anita had been the only normal person willing to hire
her.

She
couldn’t go back to being a crime scene tech.  It had nearly cost Grace her
sanity.  And she sure couldn’t go work with her family.  They were a surefire
ticket
back
to the crazy house.  Not only were her relatives insane, but
their potion shop somehow lost money even though they could literally
make
money
with their spells.  As much a Grace hated to admit it, their magic
could actually do --well-- magical things.  There was no logical explanation
for their powers.  So how on God’s green earth could they have spent three
hundred years dead broke?

It
was enough to drive even a really normal person bonkers.

“Why
do you let her speak to you so?”  The delusion continued, gesturing towards
Anita’s office door.  “You should stand up for yourself!”

Grace
looked up at the ugly dropped ceiling and let out a long breath.  He was
actually right.  Was that a bad sign?  An even
worse
sign than seeing a
delusion, in the first place?

Maybe
she
should’ve
gone to hospital.  Grace just couldn’t shake the feeling
that if she stepped foot into that sterile, cold space, she wouldn’t be able to
get back out, again.  It would be like a year ago, only worse.  Just thinking
about it triggered claustrophobia and had her doing her deep breathing
exercises to calm down.

What
she really needed was to just be normal.  Normal people didn’t see visions of
Revolutionary War era criminals.  Normal people didn’t have relatives who
hunted unicorns and spent every free moment trying to recreate the family’s
long-lost recipe for “troll powder.”  Normal people didn’t visit crime scenes
and relive the murders.  Normal people were boring and stable and… normal.

Normal
was the key to happiness.

She
was sure of it, no matter what her family thought.  If she could just figure
out the secret of normalcy, everything else would fall into place.  Her whole
life would go back to not sucking.  All she had to do was focus on reality and
tune out the amazingly attractive invisible man following her around.

Think
normal.

Speaking
of which, she was late for her date.  Grace checked her watch.  Yes, a nice,
normal dinner with nice, normal Robert would make everything fine again.  No one
was more relentlessly normal than her boyfriend.

Hopefully,
he could bore the delusion away.

“Now
that we’re alone, will you finally listen to me?”  The completely
un
-normal
Scottish guy demanded.  He straightened away from the wall and headed over to
her.  Aside from some transparency around the edges of his large form, he
looked remarkable solid.  And really handsome.  Amazingly, disgustingly, unbelievably
handsome.  “We have much to discuss.”

He
seemed bigger up close, the eighteenth-century clothes molded against the
masculine lines of his body.  His remarkable muscle-tone made sense.  Kind of. 
If Grace was going to imagine Jamie Riordan, of
course
she’d imagine him
as the most attractive man in the world.  She’d been obsessed with the pirate from
the time she was fifteen and now he was standing there, like that stupid portrait
come to life.

Except
he wasn’t alive.

Refusing
to acknowledge him, Grace got to her feet.  Instantly, the room spun and she
had to catch herself on the edge of the desk.  Her head didn’t appreciate any sudden
movement.  She’d diagnose herself with some kind of brain injury, but she’d
been seeing things
before
she fell.

Long
before
if you counted that hallucination in the alleyway.

“Are
you, alright?”  Make-believe-Jamie loomed over Grace and held out a palm, like
he could somehow steady her.  His hands really were stunning, his fingers long
and perfectly shaped.  They should have belonged to an artist, not a pirate.  “Maybe
you should sit back down, lass.  You still look peaked.”

Wonderful. 
The only person who’d shown her any compassion was a John Adams-y-themed figment
of her own imagination.  God, could she be more pathetic?

Grace
waved him away and headed for the door, smoothing her hair down.  Hopefully,
the long dark curls covered the bruise on her head.  She didn’t want to have to
explain any of this to Robert.  It would be too awkward.  Anything that even
hinted at messiness put him in a sour mood.  Robert’s inflexibility would have
been annoying, except Grace kept reminding herself that it was further proof of
his unsurpassed normalness.

Still,
he was going to be peeved that she’d missed their standing Friday night, eight-thirty
dinner reservation.  She was going to have to go straight to his house in her
stupid costume, which would also irritate him.  Maybe they could skip the
restaurant and order in.  She didn’t feel like going out, anyway.  Her head was
killing her and her stress level was off the charts.

“Where
are you going?”  Fake-Jamie followed her out the door and into the stifling
heat of the fading Virginia twilight.  “Ya cannot ignore me.  It
means
something that you’re able to see me, when no one else ever has.”

Yeah,
it meant she was losing her mind.  Again.

“We
must figure out why this is happening, lass.  Denial is no way to deal with
life’s challenges.  Or
death’s
challenges, either.  We need to face this
opportunity head on.”

He
truly had a magical voice.  The accent was like liquid sex drizzled on
chocolate cheesecake.  …Even when he was speaking to her like a know-it-all
talk show therapist.

Grace
put her fingers in her ears and walked faster, trying to block him out.  Her
car was the most practical four-door in the parking lot.  Grace disliked
looking at the tan box, but it was
normal
and that was all that
mattered.  The only slight unique thing about it was the small decal in the
back window and even that was sold all over the Chesapeake Bay, so it hardly
even registered on the weirdness scale.  It was just an innocent little
mermaid.  Totally within the confines of normalcy.

At
least that’s what she’d
told
herself… but maybe it was a like a gateway
drug into the world of strange.  Just in case, Grace paused to rip it off the
window after she unlocked the car.  There was no point in taking chances.

“Oh,
I quite liked sticker.”  The delusion complained.  “Reminded me of my last trip
to Jamaica.”  He gave a contented hum of a sound.  “Those were some of the best
days of my life.  A chest full of gold, a barrel of rum, and mermaids swimming
in an azure blue sea.”