Shadow Bound (Wraith) (11 page)

T
he next day,
I followed Jeannie through the front door of the nursing home. I’d volunteered to come with her to see her mother, my great-aunt Ruth. I’d met her before, but hadn’t seen her since I started seeing the ghosts or found out she saw them, too.

“Let me go check in,” Jeannie said. While she walked to the front desk, I slipped my phone out of my pocket. With fast fingers, I typed a message to Connor.

Hey, with Jeannie. Can we talk later today?

I waited a second for a reply. Nothing.

“Ready?” Jeannie said, handing me a visitor’s sticker. I peeled off the back and stuck it on my chest. “Thanks for driving me.”

“No problem,” I replied. It wasn’t as though I had much choice. My mother informed me before work today that as soon as I arrived home, I needed to bring Jeannie here since she had to work. My plan had been to go see Connor, but that wasn’t the first message of the day he had ignored. In light of this, playing chauffeur made an acceptable alternative to obsessing over whether he called me back or not.

On the elevator ride, Jeannie reminded me that her mother was often heavily medicated so she never knew if she would be asleep or not.

“Bebe said things have gotten pretty bad. Sometime she seems lucid, but you never know what she will say. She may ask you to see your hat or something.”

“I’m not wearing a hat.”

“Exactly.”

The elevator doors opened and Jeannie stepped off and led the way down a narrow hallway. The hall was quiet save for the hum of a television or radio as we passed door after closed door.

“Here we are,” Jeannie said, mostly to herself. She paused outside a door with the name Ruth Monroe on a small piece of paper next to the room number.

My aunt knocked and called through the door, “Mama, it’s Jeannie, can I come in?

There was no reply, so Jeannie went ahead and opened the door. “We could be here all day if we waited for her to answer.”

I followed Jeannie into the small room. The furnishings consisted of a single bed, two padded chairs that had a table in between and a small television in the corner. The room felt sparse, but I supposed Ruth didn’t really comprehend her surroundings. Jeannie told me on the way here that all meals were brought in by the nurses, so it’s not like she needed to cook or anything.

“Hi, Mama. How are you?” Jeannie said. Ruth sat in one of the chairs, staring out the window.

“Baby girl?” Ruth said, turning away from the window. Jeannie walked right in front of her.

“It’s me and I brought Jane.”

Ruth eyes narrowed. “Jane who?”

“Claire’s girl. Your great-niece? Remember?”

She turned and studied me. “No.”

Jeannie laughed. “Oh well, here she is. Beautiful isn’t she.”

“She looks like Claire.”

Jeannie rolled her eyes. “She sure does. How are you feeling today? Did you take your medicine?”

Before Aunt Ruth could answer, a woman stopped at the door. “I’m Janice Greenwood, Ruth’s social worker. Do you have a minute to go over some papers?”

“Sure,” she said and squeezed my hand. “Be right back.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but she was gone. I tried to squash the slight moment of panic I felt being left alone with Ruth. She had been fairly quiet since we came in, maybe we could sit in silence until Jeannie returned.

Ruth’s gaze returned to the window – staring into space or daydreaming. I sat in the chair across from her, but she made no notice that I was there at all. I took out my phone to play a game.

“You see that?” Ruth said.

“Excuse me?” I croaked. I looked around the room.

“That,” she said and jabbed her finger at the window. “That angel has been sitting right there all afternoon.”

“Angel?”

“I think it’s trying to tell me something. It’s keeps flapping those big black wings”

I looked out the window. “Aunt Ruth, that’s a bird. A crow or something.”

She stared out the window a bit longer before turning her eyes on me. She studied me for a moment and then asked, “Girl, what’s your name?”

“Jane. Claire’s daughter.”

She sighed heavily as though my mere presence exhausted her. “Not you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Not me?”

“I’m talking to the girl.”

As much as I hoped there was no other girl, that it was only me, I had a feeling this wasn’t true.

“What girl?”

Ruth focused her eyes behind me, near the door. “Why you hide from her? Your job ain’t to hide from her but to show her.”

I turned and expected to see something or someone, but there was nothing there but the door and the blank wall surrounding it.

“Who do you see?” I asked.

“That little colored girl. You know her, she’s just playing games. Says her name is Tonya and that you know her mama.” She said this with a firm nod. “Don’t let her trick you. It’s how she ended up dead in the first place.”

Nothing about this moment should make sense, but everything became startlingly clear. Ruth could see Tonya, the girl I’d seen around my neighborhood. And Tonya was following me.

“She’s here now?”

Ruth nodded and gestured behind me. I looked again, but saw nothing.

Confused, I asked, “Did she tell you what she wants?”

“No. She’s just playing with you, and now me. Peeking out behind that chair.”

“What kind of games is she playing?” The word ‘game’ caught my attention. “What do you mean being tricky is how she died?”

“Silly games. But none of this is funny stuff. Somebody is gonna end up hurt. These lines are blurry. There’s rules and that one ain’t following them.” Her eyes moved back to the window. “Same with that angel. It’s not my time, go away,” she yelled at the bird. Unfazed, it flapped its wings and snapped its sharp beak in return. 

Her finger tapped against the window pane and she spoke to the bird. “You can wait all you want, but I’m not going anywhere. Not yet, anyway. And don’t even think about snatching this body.”

“You think that bir… angel wants you to die?”

“Well, I knew I’d meet him one day. It’s just a little early.” Again she looks me up and down with eyes surrounded by wrinkly skin.

I had the hardest time following her thought process, but she could see Tonya, maybe she saw an angel, too. “Jeannie said she painted a picture, an angel with black wings. And my boyfriend, he’s an artist, too – same thing. Black wings.”

“You know, the raven is a special bird. It houses the soul of those who have passed on. Sometimes it transports. Other times it becomes a home. For a little while at least.” She looked back out the window.

“That ain’t no raven. That’s the angel of death.”

“Who would want to follow me?”

“That angel isn’t here for you.” She waves me off. “I’m old. He’s just waiting on me to open the window. He thinks he’s got a chance at my body, too. Making the jump. I’ve lived in this shell for 92 years. No way I’m handing it over to a shadow. What you need to figure out is what that little girl wants from you.” Ruth cast her faded blue eyes in my direction. I leaned over to ask her more, but the door swung open. I slid back into my seat.

Jeannie entered the room with her usual energy. “So much paperwork, but I think we’re finally done.” She stopped just inside the door and took in the sight of me and Ruth mid-discussion. “Everything okay?”

Ruth looked from me to her daughter. “We’re fine, dear.”

I nodded. There were few secrets between Jeannie and me, but I had no idea how to even start into this one.

“I was showing Jane the angel outside my window,” Ruth said innocently.

Jeannie walked over and peered out the glass. “A raven! Very appropriate for you two.”

“Angel.”

“Aunt Ruth is convinced there is an angel of death outside the window,” I explained. Just like that, the energy in the room shifted to awkward and tense. Jeannie hopped up and began fussing over her mother. Ignoring my comment entirely. She told us both about her last show in New York – a story I had already heard – but I acted as though I hadn’t. This lasted until it was time to for Ruth to have her medication and dinner.

“Bye, Mama. Sleep well tonight.”

“Okay, baby girl. I will.”

“Bye, Aunt Ruth, it was nice to see you.”

She reached for my hand and held it tight. “Come back and see me anytime.”

“I will. I promise.”

Jeannie hugged her mother one more time and we left, exiting her room and going back down the hallway to the elevator. While we waited, she turned to me and said, “Okay, what happened while I was gone?”

I shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

“Jane, something happened in there! You both looked guilty as a fox in a hen house when I came back in. What went on between you two?”

I laughed. “You get very Southern sounding, you know, when you spend some time down here.” She fixed me with a stare. “Like I said, nothing. The angel thing freaked me out. First you and your painting and then Connor’s stuff at the Ruins,” I said. “Now this? Aunt Ruth is convinced some creepy bird is really a creepier angel of death? I think I’m allowed to be a little distressed over it all. I mean, she kept talking to the bird like it could hear her, and she said stuff about him not taking her body and being a shadow.”

“Of course you are, but you realize my mother isn’t completely lucid, right? Sure, ravens have always been tied to the dead. I’m sure somewhere in her confused mind she remembers this.”

“You’re probably right.” The elevator pinged and the double-doors slid open. I used the time it took to let the elderly couple out and for us to get in to figure out what to say. “She also saw Tonya. The little girl from next door. She told her to stop hiding and let me know why she was following me.”

Jeannie frowned. “You realize that although I believe my mother has amazing gifts – just like you – sometimes she lives in a world confused by long-term drug use and experimental treatments, right?”

“I know.”

“She’s right though, the more you find out about Tonya the sooner you can help her move along. Sounds like she’s been here a while. It may be harder to convince her to move on than other spirits.”

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to the lobby. “Great, another stubborn ghost. Just what I need.”

&

I saw his legs the minute I turned the corner. Slim, but muscular, standing on a tall ladder. His sweat-soaked shirt stuck to his back. When I got out of my dad’s truck, I watched him wipe his face with the hem.

He had barely repainted the top section of the wall. From the looks of things, it would take several coats to cover his urban version of Charlotte, whose dark eyes looked down on me in an obnoxious, judging manner. He managed to capture her essence perfectly. I hated her.

“Hey,” he said, twisting on the ladder when my door slammed. “How did you find me here?”

I nod at the mural. “Kind of hard to miss.”

“I guess so.”

“Ava and I came down here to see it yesterday. The guy told us he dropped the charges but you had to repair the wall.” Connor climbed down the ladder and stood in front of me. “I would have told you all that yesterday or today if you returned my calls.”

“My mom took my cell. Punishment.”

“I’m surprised she’d let you out of her sight, much less without a phone.”

“Oh,” he laughs. “They have something better.” He tugged down his sock to reveal a thick plastic band and a square box attached to it. “Ankle monitor. They’re tracking me 24/7.”

“Oh, that sucks.”

“Yeah, it does.”

We stood awkwardly in the middle of the parking lot. Connor had his hands shoved in his pockets and fresh drip marks on his shoes. My thoughts were caught in my chest and lodged in my throat. I had so many things I wanted to say and so many feelings scrambled with those words. But to speak them would lay me bare in this crappy parking lot in the middle of the July heat. Finally, I looked up at Charlotte’s image and said, “Where do we go from here?”

“I’m trying. I really am, but I can’t get her out of my head.” His words sting like a slap and I turn away. He grabbed my arm. “I’m taking my meds. I don’t want to do this stuff – the drawings, the dreams – but she’s all up in my head and she’s not letting go.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means she’s with me when I sleep and when I’m alone. Her voice echoes through my head – whispering. All day long.”

“But you can’t see her.”

“No.”

“This isn’t right, Connor.”

“I guess she needs me for something right? This is how it works.”

“But this isn’t how it works. They don’t take over our dreams and thoughts and make us do illegal things.”

His mouth dropped and I felt his comeback before he even had the chance to say it. I held up a hand in warning. “Don’t say it.”