southern ghost hunters 01 - southern spirits (6 page)

The ghost's hair unwound from the braid. The shadows in her face drew deeper. I watched, stunned, while her hair freed itself and spread out behind her as if carried on an unseen gale of wind.

My voice left me with a final squeak as she drew the noose off of her neck. 

She drifted straight for me, her eyes cold, her face menacing. 

I was sorry this happened to her. I was sorry I intruded. I cringed, holding up my hands to shield my head. I willed myself to open my mouth, to speak without screaming. Maybe if I explained what I was doing there, she'd understand. Maybe she'd let me go. The words came out in a rush of desperation. "I'm only here because my ex-fiancé screwed me over."

She stopped her approach and hissed out a sharp breath. It sounded scratchy, weak, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time.

"Men," she said, her voice crackling. The ghost tilted her head to the side. 

I swallowed. Hard. She'd just given me an opening. Maybe. I couldn't believe I was explaining this to a ghost. "He cheated on me. And he assaulted my sister." It made me angry just to think about it. "Then he turned the whole town against me when I called off the wedding."

She stared at me. My heart pounded. I'd probably said too much. But it was the truth. All of it.

She drew her hair over her shoulders, watching me all the while. "My former love also had trouble with the truth."

I tried a conspiratorial laugh, but it came out as more of a whimper. "Um…" My power of speech, which was my only true gift on this earth, had completely abandoned me.

She began to braid her streaming black hair. "I know what they call me. I hear them say it." She flinched as if struck. "Jilted Josephine."

I cleared my throat. She might have heard me say it when I first walked into this place. Guilt gnawed at me. "I've heard it bandied about," I said weakly.

"Jonathan said he wanted to marry me." She snorted, and her watery black and white image grew stronger. She glanced at the window overlooking the front yard. "But then
it
happened."

Her back stiffened, and I could see a red haze form around her.

I had a feeling we were headed into dangerous territory, and I didn't want to test my luck. It was freaky enough to be standing here, talking to her. But at least she wasn't attacking me. She wasn't threatening me. 

She was simply another girl with a crappy ex.

I shook my head. "Men can really do a number on us, can't they?" And as long as we were telling stories, "When I told Beau I couldn't marry him after what he'd done, he refused to listen. He said the wedding was going forward whether I wanted it to or not." I still remembered his smug words.

Her eyes widened. "He forced you to the altar?"

"No. I didn't show up." I couldn't believe I was having this conversation. "Once he realized I was standing by my word, he painted me around town as a flaky gold-digger who was only after his money." I crossed my arms over my chest. 

Her image swirled in an unseen wind, her hair loosening and flying out behind her as she clenched her jaw. "My fiancé left town without telling me and married his cousin. He said it 'just happened.' How do you 'just happen' to get married?" She held out her hands and a silver locket shimmered into view. She gripped it hard, turning it over in her hands. "Of course, his cousin had a bigger dowry."

Her white gown streamed around her as she rushed to the window and hurled the silver necklace straight through the broken panes. I heard the glass shatter anyway, listened as broken shards clattered onto to the ground below. "If I was a better shot, I'd have hit him in the head with it."

"I'd have helped you practice your aim," I told her.

Her expression softened and she appeared almost vulnerable. "I really loved him." Her gaze focused on the rough floorboards. "Enough to compromise my virtue. I couldn't marry anyone else." She raised her head to watch out the window and I saw a faint silver light gleam amid the weeds and the overgrowth. "Then he arrived at my home, thinking to apologize, when he had
her
in his carriage." She turned to me. "So I cast the contents of my hope chest out the window as well. Along with the chest itself."

"I hope it landed on him," I said.

She smiled. And when she did, she was truly lovely. "I would have liked that very much."

I smiled back and the ghost gave a small shrug. "Maybe we can start over," I suggested. "My name is Verity. I'm from Sugarland as well."

She tilted her head and watched me closely. "Most of the time, people can't see me," she said slowly.

Oh, how I missed those days. That time. An hour or two ago when I would have classified this as the stuff of nightmares. 

But nooo. I'd explicitly requested to be open to this and to everything else that was happening in this godforsaken house.

"Let me see
." Ha. I should have run from this place and never looked back.

"I don't like when people come into my house," she said grudgingly. "They come and they gawk, and I hear what they say about me. It's never kind."

She had a point. "I don't know why the gossips enjoy other people's pain. I don't think most people do it on purpose. If you haven't been on the receiving end, it's hard to understand." I certainly hadn't until it happened to me. "Why do you stay here if it bothers you so much?" 

 "My mother," she said simply. "She told me Jonathan was a bad choice. She wanted me to marry the man my father picked out for me. I refused. I thought I would prove them wrong. Then
it
happened." She turned her haunted gaze toward me. "She sent me to my room to think about what I did."

"For a hundred years?"

She nodded. "It's very lonely."

"I should think so." I almost offered to come back and visit, but this ghost-seeing was a one-time thing. I didn't want to make a promise I couldn't keep. 

Josephine shrugged. "I'd like to leave, but I'm afraid of what might happen. Ma has a temper. She went poltergeist once and tore off the chimney."

Wait. "Poltergeist?" I didn't understand what she meant. The only thing I knew about poltergeists was not to put your hands on a TV around one, especially if you were a little blonde girl.

She kept her eyes on the door behind me. In the silence I could hear a faint scuffle from the kitchen downstairs. "I hope it doesn't happen tonight. Your friend provokes her. She doesn't like intruders; they make her feel unsafe."

I drew in a breath. "What's going on down there?"

Josephine gave a small smile and tamped down a giggle. "She is scaring him with my dog. I almost feel sorry for that insufferable man."

If she did, she was a better woman than I was. Still, he was my one connection to the other side. I needed to give Frankie a break. "Would you mind calling your dog back?"

She pressed her lips together and whistled. "Here, Fritz." I heard the clicking of dog claws on hardwood as the hound trotted straight through the locked wood door, tail wagging. Josephine reached down and stroked his head. "Fritzie has made my confinement bearable. He loves me."

He ate up the attention and appeared like a totally different animal than the one I'd met downstairs. 

"Do you wish to pet him?" she asked. "He is quite friendly once he has been introduced."

Fritz lolled his head and gave me a serious hit of adorable-dog syndrome.

"No. That's okay," I said, resisting his charm. His body would be cold and wet and, "I don't want to make my skunk jealous."

Josephine raised an eyebrow at the mention of my skunk, but she nodded as if she understood. "All animals want to do is love us," she said, stroking Fritz's knobby head. "He has been more protective lately, ever since the last time a living person came up here." She winced at the memory. "A strange man barged into my room. He ripped up my floor right there," she said, pointing to the spot right underneath where she'd hung. "He didn't even care that I was here."

I stiffened. "Did he leave anything?" 

She shook her head, her thoughts far away. "I'm not sure what you mean."

My stomach tingled. "I came here because a man hid money on your property a long time ago. I need it to save my house." 

Her mouth formed a hard line. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost my house."

"It's a terrible feeling," I told her.

She gave a short nod as Fritz nosed her, trying to get her attention back. "If the money is there, you can have it."

The southern manners in me screamed to ask her if she was sure, but I knew better than that. "Thank you," I said quickly. 

Before I lost my nerve, I stepped around the ghost and knelt down over the place where that poor girl had died. I held my flashlight between my teeth, aiming it at the floor, and ran my fingers over the rough wood planks. None of them were the same length. I traced the length of each of them, searching for a break that would indicate a hideaway of some sort underneath.

The beam of my flashlight shook, its light flickering over the old hardwood. There were four round marks where the legs of the chair had rested.

My skin prickled as I touched one of the marks. I glanced up at Josephine as my finger found purchase next to it, under a knothole that had long since rotted out. She was staring at the door, focused on whatever was going on downstairs. I thought I heard Frankie yelp.

One problem at a time.

The board groaned as I lifted it away from the others. Then I shone the flashlight inside.

A tangle of small white bones greeted me. "Oh my Lord." I reached in and knocked them away. A long wood box lay underneath, with an oak tree carved into the lid.

I let out a joyful, disbelieving snort. "This is it." I reached down, my fingers closing over the prize just as I felt a cold whoosh of air rush into the room. 

Josephine let out a gasp. "Ma, no!"

A wall of energy slammed down onto me, stunning me. My ears tingled, my legs felt weak. I looked up and saw the disembodied face of a woman with stark red eyes and a vicious, angry sneer. 

She swooped down on me. I grabbed the box and rolled to the side, looking for somewhere—anywhere—to run.

"Stop it, Ma!" Josephine stood between the specter and me.

The older woman's hair was pulled in a severe bun. Her nostrils flared and she vibrated with malice. "What did I tell you about letting people in?"

The door to the room flew open. Frankie stood on the other side, hat gone, suit rumpled. "You get it?" He asked, eyeing the box in my hand. "Let's go!"

I found my feet and dashed past all three ghosts, straight out into the hall. 

Fritz barked like crazy, his nails scrabbling against the hardwood, but someone—most likely Josephine—held him back. "It was lovely to meet you," she called, "please do come again sometime!"

"She's a crazy woman," Frankie hollered, hot on my heels.

"She's getting us out of here," I countered. I clutched the box to my chest and about fell over making the corner around the landing without touching the banister. 

Frankie zipped ahead of me. "Not Josephine. The other one."

I thundered down the stairs like the wood under my feet could open up and swallow me at any second.

For all I knew, it could.

I jumped the last three stairs and hurtled past the ghostly table and chairs. The only thing I cared about was the exit, straight ahead.

I swore if I made it, I'd never do this again. I was done with Frankie, and his money schemes, and ghosts, and all of it.

My fingers closed around the knob. It was ice cold. I twisted it hard, threw the door open, and ran straight into the blessed freedom outside.

A shotgun blast ripped through the side of the house next to me, peppering my back with shards of wood.

Holy—

"Stop!" I screamed, holding out a hand as I gripped the box under my other arm. Darkness surrounded me. I'd suddenly gone from the glow of the ghostly visions to pitch black, and my eyes needed to adjust. I couldn't see. 

"Run!" Frankie screamed, dissolving into thin air.

I crouched and started back for the house, even as I felt the anger and the energy of Josephine's crazy mother radiating down to my very core. 

A second shotgun blast tore into the ground in front of me, sending up a spray of plants and dirt. Sweet heaven. I dropped the cash box and kept going.

Rumbles echoed from inside the house. The dog barked like mad. A cold wall of air rose up, whipping my hair into my eyes, stinging my cheeks, and driving me back.

"I mean you no harm!" I screamed at my attacker, at the ghosts, at anyone who would listen.

A sharp double-click echoed in my ears as my assailant cocked a gun.

"Then stay the hell off my property!"

Chapter Six

I froze. I knew that voice. It was cracklier than it had been. Sharpened with age. But I had no doubt who it was: Maisie Hatcher. Heart pounding half out of my chest, I stopped with my back to her and straightened. 

Making sure to be slow, painfully restrained, I raised my arms up and away from my body. I didn't dare turn or speak. 

Not yet.

In the moonlight, I could see the spray of small bullet holes torn into the wood next to the door. I gulped. That could have been me. 

"Where are the rest?" she demanded. "I want to see every goddamned one of you hooligans."

My mouth and throat went as dry as the Sahara, while the rest of me sweated buckets. I was reluctant to speak, afraid of what might set her off. But I knew I had to say
something
. It was my only chance to calm her down. 

"It's just me, Mrs. Hatcher. Verity," I began, voice shaking despite my efforts to sound soothing. "I'd like to turn around now."

"Trespassing delinquents," she mumbled under her breath. "Let's see your face."

I turned. 

Mrs. Maisie Hatcher stalked toward me, her legs bent and wide. She held fire in her eyes and a shotgun aimed straight at my chest. A shabby tan bathrobe covered her high-necked blue nightgown. She'd aged twenty years in the ten since I'd last seen her.