Shadow Bound (Wraith) (10 page)

Ava hadn’t moved and I was about to drag her away when a car pulled up and parked next to her SUV. We both eyed the shiny, new Lexus. Too nice for this part of town, I thought, as a man about my dad’s age opened the door and walked over to us. He was wearing a tie and dress pants. It seemed too hot for this type of clothing.

“Looking at my uncommissioned mural?” he asked. He spotted my camera. “Get your pictures now. I’m having this painted over tomorrow.”

Ava smiled. “Not your type of artwork?” She’s so much better with adults than I am.

“As much as I don’t want this on the side of my building, even I can admit it’s pretty amazing. Poor kid, he’s obviously talented. Too bad he’s such a mess.”

I opened my mouth to defend my non-defendable boyfriend, but Ava placed a hand on my arm. “Do you know who did it?”

Beads of sweat had already developed on his forehead from the heat, and he wiped it off with the back of his hand. “Yeah, a local boy, around your age.”

Ava frowned, continuing with her detective act. “Oh, so, he’s going to jail then, right?”

The man pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “Not this time. I just got back from the police station. I’m dropping charges. I don’t need the hassle, to be honest. Plus, he’s coming out here to repair and paint the wall.”

“That’s very nice of you.”

He grimaced. “I think so. Well, ladies, I have some houses to sell. Hopefully, the next time you come by this will be a nice, clean wall again.”

He walked past the two of us and unlocked the front door of this office, leaving us out in the heat.

“Well, that’s good to know. At least Connor isn’t going to jail,” Ava said after we were back in the car. She turned the air on full blast.

“I guess,” I replied.

“You seriously think jail would be better?”

“No. It’s just...”

She cut me off. “I know, things are complicated.”

“Ava, I’m sorry it’s just not my stuff to tell.” This was a lie. I could tell my part and then she would go running and tell everyone and no one would speak to me again.

She pulled out of the parking lot and that’s when I saw her. Charlotte stood by the edge of the building, under her portrait. Luckily, Ava didn’t notice my silence because she was in a full-on rant at me about being a bad friend. “You know, maybe if you opened up a little I could help you. Cutting me off like this isn’t helping the situation. I’m pretty open-minded, you know.”

Out the window Charlotte smirked at the two of us as we drove away. I wished Ava was right and that I could tell her everything she wanted to know without losing her in the process.

&

After Ava and I had an awkward goodbye, I was met by two surprises. The first was Tonya from next door playing hopscotch on a flat dirt area in her backyard. I considered going over to her, but stopped because the second surprise stood on my back porch calling my name.

“Jeannie!”

My aunt stood on the top step watching me with a wide grin on her face. I looked over my shoulder and the girl had disappeared, the rock she was using as a marker abandoned on the ground. I looked back at my aunt and she eyed me suspiciously.

“You’re early. I thought you were coming in tomorrow.”

“Changed my flight. How are you? You look great.”

Jeannie was lying of course. I looked like I hadn’t slept all week and I had a boyfriend on state-mandated lockdown and we were on the verge of a break-up. I chose not to say this, and instead went with a standard, “Thanks. You, too.” I helped her with her luggage by carrying one of the two large bags in the back door. My mom had made up the downstairs office for her to sleep on the pull-out couch while she was here to manage hospital issues for Ruth, her mother.

“Have you gone to the hospital yet?”

“No, I think I’ll head down in the morning. I have an appointment at 9 a.m.”

“What’s going on? Is Aunt Ruth okay?

She dropped her bags on the sofa and nodded. “She’s fine. You know she’s been in residential care for many years. For the longest time, it was her mind slipping but now her body seems to have given up. I need to help get her transferred from one section of the facility to the other. Right now she’s in an able-bodied unit. She needs to be in a nursing home.”

“Is that why you moved her up here from Macon?”

“Yes, the facilities are better, plus it’s closer to family.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize things were so bad.” The realization of my self-absorption over the last couple of months hit home.

“It happened fast. It’s been too much for Bebe to handle on her own.” She ran her hands through her hair.

“Enough about that. How are you? How is your handsome man?”

The question alone brought tears to my eyes. “Do you really want to know?”

She pushed her luggage aside and pulled me down on the couch next to her. “Tell me everything.”

&

“What do you think?” Jeannie asked. She drank a glass of iced tea while stirring a boiling pot of pasta. Making dinner was her idea. I would have waited for my parents to come home. “Is this ghostie good or bad?”

“I wasn’t even aware they could be bad.”

“Sweetheart, everything can be bad. Life, energy, auras, fortunes, psychic abilities, people, ghosts, spirits. Some things are even murky and hiding in the shadows. We don’t know what they are until they appear.”

“You think Charlotte is evil or something?

“You said she threatened you.”

“No, I just felt threatened. She didn’t really do anything.” I busied myself, setting the table.

“You can’t ignore your feelings, Jane. You communicate with the other side. The rules are different. I don’t just see auras I feel them too.”

I gave her a skeptical look. She continued, “Like earlier, when we were on the back porch. There was someone in the other yard. What did you see?”

“Yeah, my neighbor’s granddaughter or something. I’m not sure yet. What did you get from her?”

“The standard black for death, but with a little blue and white. She’s here for a reason – a good one.”

“I can’t get her alone long enough to find out what she needs. She’s skittish.”

“Sounds like she may have been here for awhile,” she said. “What are you going to do? How are you going to handle this? Obviously, you can’t just give up on Connor.”

This doesn’t seem so obvious to me, but I know she’s right. Even if he’s given up himself, that doesn’t mean I don’t still have a job to do. “I need to figure out what Charlotte is here for and how to help her move on. Once she’s gone, I can probably help him. She’s contacting him somehow, but unless he’s lying to me, he doesn’t seem fully aware of what’s going on.”

“I agree. Seems like the right direction. Help these ghosts move on. Let the living live and the dead pass over.”

“I’m just not sure how.”

She shook her head at me. “Of course you do. You’re just letting your emotions get in the way, something I suspect a clever girl like Charlotte is exploiting.”

“She’s dead. She wants Connor. I’m not really sure how to go about giving her what she wants,” my voice shook.

She put her glass down on the counter and turned off the pot on the stove. “Come on, I have an idea.”

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere I can get a better read on things.”

“T
his way,” I
said, tromping through the overgrown path. Now mid-summer, the vines, weeds and kudzu grew so fast it was almost impossible to find the trail.

“You should’ve told me to wear sneakers,” Jeannie grumbled.

“The thought of you and sneakers never crossed my mind.” I looked down at the brown leather sandals that wrapped around her feet and ankles. “Sorry.”

“I’m blaming you if I get poison ivy,” she laughed, as I told her to follow me deeper into the woods, away from the main running trail.

Jeannie asked me to show her Connor’s art so she could get a better feel. The ruins seemed like the best place since I didn’t want to be seen at the realtor’s office twice in one day.

“Connor’s behavior changed right after Charlotte killed herself,” I explained.

“Do you think they had a…” she scrunched up her nose like she smelled something bad. “Do you think they dated?”

“He said no.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Yeah, I do.”

She stared at me for a moment. “You hesitated.”

I stepped on a branch and held it down for her. “Not because I don’t believe him. I don’t think they ever dated, but I think he cared for her a lot. Enough for her death to shake his world.”

“You don’t think your death would do the same to him?”

“That’s the problem. Connor has sacrificed a lot for me, and he’s never been deceptive. This weird rebellious, delinquent behavior was part of his past. Why is the death of this girl pushing him backward?”

“Maybe he feels guilty for some reason?”

“I don’t know. He won’t tell me enough about what happened.”

Jeannie paused and eyed the small hill in front of us. “You never told me this would be a hike.”

“Stop complaining. You wanted to get a feel for Connor, and this is his natural habitat.”

We crested the hill and the Ruins lay below, primarily clear of the forest overgrowth.

“There,” I said, pointing to the crumbling buildings and debris in front of us.

“This is amazing.” Jeannie stood tall at the top of the cliff and absorbed the whole scene. She fumbled with the buckle on her purse and dug out a camera. “Show me Connor’s work. No, wait. Let me find it.”

Jeannie climbed down the cement staircase that led from the top of the hill down to the middle of the Ruins. I followed her down but stopped at the bottom step to rest. She roamed the area ohing and ahing over the different designs. The boys had covered every inch of brick and stone. She never put her camera down, instead viewing the entire place through the lens. I noticed her stop once or twice and run her hands over the paint-covered brick – feeling the painting. Her behavior reminded me of how it felt to be “read” by Jeannie. She always touched as well as saw. I had the impression this was a similar process.

“Here!” she shouted, pointing at one particular wall out of my line of vision. “This has to be his.”

I brushed off my shorts as I walked down to meet her. Sure enough, she found Connor’s wall. Obviously, he had not been here in several weeks but his tag was still visible and the wall seemed untouched. I had no doubt a code existed between the guys down here over how the space was divided and at what point you lost your claim. A couple of days in detention probably didn’t justify painting over another artists work.

“How did you know?”

“The color and composition. The paintings are similar to the mosaic you two made.”

I studied the wall and tried to see the painting through her eyes, but it was impossible. I knew his style and had seen some of the designs before they made it off the pages of his sketchbook.

“He has a real sense of color. They probably reflect his emotions at the time.” She walked back and forth, studying each section. “You see this?” she asked, pointing to a blood red design that resembled a heart. A literal one, not the traditional cartoonish representation. It was surrounded by a pair of clutched hands. An intricate symbol sat at the top like a crown.

“Yeah.”

“That’s you.”

“What is that? A claddagh?”

“A variation of one. You’re the heart. See how the red is so dark. That’s the color of your aura. I wonder if he can see it or if you just inspire him that way,” she mused. She pointed to the image over the heart. “I’m not sure what that symbol is. Something else Irish probably.”

“Connor mentioned once that his grandparents are from Ireland. He was using some symbolism in a project at school.”

“Then that up there,” she pointed to an angular, black shape near the top of the wall, “is death. Following you of course.”

Of course. “Bloody hearts and death. How romantic.”

She ran a hand down my arm and smiled. “These letters seem to be some kind of gibberish. No order at all. I have no idea what it means, except that Connor doesn’t seem to be the type to include something random.” She paused to snap a couple photos. “I suspect these letters have meaning. You should ask him.”

“We’re not exactly on speaking terms, you know.”

She smiled. “Maybe not right now, but we’ll figure this out and you will be. You don’t create a monument to someone you love one week and then refuse her the next.”

I blushed at the word love. Even though my feelings for Connor were intense, I had no evidence that he ever loved me. A piece of graffitied wall wasn’t enough to convince me.

The sun shifted behind the trees and even though it would be light for a while longer, Jeannie was finished with her tour of the Ruins.

“There’s a trail over here,” I said, waving her in a different direction than the way we had come in.

Together we climbed the short hill. It was steep and slippery.

“A little help,” Jeannie asked. I turned to grasp her hand and help her up.

“Wait,” she said, pulling out her camera once more. “I want to capture it from this angle.”

Jeannie began snapping pictures of Connor’s section below. From this different perspective, I looked at his bleeding heart and weird designs and wondered if my boyfriend really was crazy. Just because he had an excuse like seeing ghosts didn’t exclude the fact he may also be mentally unstable.

“Oh, Jane look!” Jeannie shouted and grabbed my arm.

“Where? What?”

“At the black design – death!”

I followed her eyes and looked. The design was more visible than before. It no longer looked like a random design. There was a body and two flapping wings. If Jeannie was right, an angel was hovering over Connor’s painting for me.