Things Lost In The Fire (51 page)

She belonged to no one and everyone at the same time. Her favorite song was about a girl who talked to angels; her preferred vice a rich glass of elderberry wine. She craved the moonlight over the sun and carried a weathered copy of the Book of Psalms in her pocket.

Home was a place she never truly found, though she gave up searching long ago. Instead, she made each new destination her temporary home. And as she traveled, the only constant that remained was her gift. Her sight. Her ability to talk to the dead.

The fire red Jeep she drove took her into the Ozarks, winding aimlessly through the endless rolling hills. With the top down, the cool night air swirled around her. It brushed her dusted-gold skin like a sweet caress and sent her long, ebony curls flying across her gypsy face. Her dark eyes filled with a peace that only the open road could give. She smelled the trees of the forest, the rusty cedar and the licorice aroma of sassafras. It blended with the cool, mineral scent of a nearby creek running fast with mountain water.

The clear sky rioted with stars; millions of them dotting the expanse of sapphire. There was no one for miles around. Not a single car, home, or any sign of life at all.

She didn’t have a destination. None that she knew, anyway. She simply drove on, content that fate would take her where she needed to be.

Reaching behind her into the backseat, she scratched the fur of her dog, Gatsby. He licked her hand, then yawned and went back to sleep. He had the soft tan and white coloring typical of a corgi and the sweet personality to accompany it. She’d rescued him from the streets of San Francisco as a puppy five years earlier, and since then he’d been her best friend.

Though she considered herself wealthy in friendship, she never let anyone get close enough to truly know her. Long ago, she’d learned a valuable lesson about trust. It ended with her understanding that she needed nothing and no one but herself to be content. To be free.

She came around a swooping bend, the towering trees leaning over the road on both sides like a canopy. Her headlights caught the leaves and branches and cascaded over the aged, tired asphalt. As she pulled out of the curve, she spotted a young woman in jeans and a white T-shirt walking on the side of the road.

Before she had a chance to slow down, she’d passed the woman. One glance in her rearview mirror, and she was gone.

Behind her, Gatsby let out a low growl.

Jackie depressed the brake slowly then looked to her right. Sitting in the passenger seat was the young woman, her shoulder length blonde hair tangled and in disarray. Her hands were clasped together tightly in her lap, the jeans she wore tattered and stained with blood. A vivid bruise bloomed over the pale white skin on her neck. Haunted blue eyes stared at Jackie in shock.

“Can you see me?” the young woman whispered in a soft southern lilt. She blinked back tears.

Jackie nodded, absorbing the waves of confusion and misery that clung to the girl like an overpowering perfume. She might have been sixteen, maybe seventeen, practically still a child.

“Am I dead?” The girl’s question ended on a sob, as if she knew the horrible truth.

Jackie let out a long, measured breath. She turned her eyes back to the road and continued to drive. “Yes, darling.”

“I…I don’t remember dying.”

“People often don’t,” Jackie told her, sympathy in her voice.

The girl shook her head. “I’ve been wandering down this road for a long time. You’re the first person to see me.”

Jackie attempted a smile. “You are not my first.”

“There are others?”

“They are all around us.” Jackie glanced over at her with bright eyes. “You are not alone, Rachel.”

The girl trembled with a visible shudder. “How do you know my name?”

“I read about you in the paper when I stopped in Gainesville,” Jackie explained, recalling the quaint diner she’d enjoyed before hitting the road. “A year ago today, you lost control of your car and rolled into a tree.”

Tears fell silently down Rachel’s face, and she rubbed at her neck. For a long moment she said nothing. Jackie drove, not minding the company. In the backseat, Gatsby decided the girl was not a threat and fell back asleep.

When Rachel spoke, her voice was hollow with fear. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“I don’t know, darling. Maybe seeing your family again will help guide you on.”

“Will you take me to them? It’s just up the road a ways.”

With a kind smile, Jackie nodded. “Of course.”

Rachel’s face lifted with a small hint of joy at the thought, though sorrow still weighed her down. She tried to reach out and touch Jackie’s hand, only to wince as her ghostly fingers passed right through Jackie’s solid ones. Another sob built in her throat, but she fought it back.

“So…who are you? How come you can see dead people?”

Jackie could tell the girl wanted to distract herself. “I go by Jackie. I’m a medium, which means I can communicate with spirits.”

Rachel shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe that’s real.”

“As real as you are sitting here beside me,” Jackie mused, eyeing her serenely. “There is so much more to this world than black and white, dead and alive. When we die, we do not just vanish. We live on.”

Rachel fiddled with the frayed tears in her jeans. “Have you always seen people like me?”

“I saw my first spirit when I was six years old in my hometown of Saginaw.” Jackie smiled, the memory sweet. “I was playing hopscotch with some friends, and I saw an older man standing in the street nearby. He was staring around, lost and confused. When I pointed him out to my friends, they laughed at me. They didn’t see him. So I walked up to him and asked who he was. He looked at me much the same way you did, with complete surprise. No one had spoken to him in the twenty years he’d been wandering around the street even though he’d tried to get people’s attention. He didn’t understand that he was dead until that moment. Then he thanked me, turned around and disappeared.”

“How did he die?” Rachel’s eyes were on her, filled with wonder.

“He’d had a cardiac arrest while crossing the street in 1970. He was dead before he hit the ground.”

“Did you start to see more of them?”

Jackie’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Many, many more. I saw children at school raising their hands and never getting called on. At the little market where we bought fresh eggs I saw a young woman crying in the corner. I even saw spirits in my own home; a young boy and his father. They were killed in the 1940s when a fire broke out and destroyed most of the home.”

“Did you talk to them?”

“The boy became somewhat of a friend to me,” Jackie said, that old ache returning to fester in her heart. Not a day went by that she didn’t miss him. “His name was Henry. He shared my room, and we would play hide-and-go-seek together, share secrets, tell stories…”

Rachel managed a smile. “That sounds nice.”

Jackie nodded, though a lone tear fell from her eye. Her hand came up to grasp the small, silver cross she wore around her neck. “It was for awhile. Until my father found out.”

“What did he do?”

Her fingers tightened around her necklace, the points of the cross digging into her skin. “He tried to exorcise me.”

Rachel blinked. “Like, from a demon?”

Jackie let out a long breath, her hand finding the steering wheel again. “Yes, but that came later, when I was thirteen. You see, my parents both came from very long and very old bloodlines of strict Catholics. Italian on my father’s side and Spanish on my mother’s side. When I was very young my mother died of cancer. I was an only child. From that point on, my father raised me to be the model of Catholic perfection. Of course, his idea of perfection did not include speaking to the dead. Or, as he believed, speaking to demons.”

Rachel’s hands tightened in her lap. “Demons?”

“They exist, though at the time I was not in contact with any,” Jackie explained, shrugging. “I was simply a child delighted with a gift that in my eyes was bestowed upon me by God.”

“Did you try and hide it from your father?”

Jackie laughed, though it held little humor. “I should have, but no. I was too curious, too naïve. It wasn’t until he pulled his belt on me one evening after catching me talking to Henry that I considered ignoring my gift. But even after the beating, I couldn’t resist. The dead continued to call me for help, for guidance. I suppose I wasn’t strong enough to say no to them. Over the years my gift grew stronger, and with each additional beating my father grew more and more aggravated that I wasn’t getting better. He started locking me in my room, keeping me away from outsiders. He was ashamed and frightened of me. He reached out to our priest for guidance, suggesting an exorcism. Fortunately for me, the priest evaluated my case and determined there was no evidence of demonic possession. He refused to perform the exorcism.”

“That’s good.”

An old, familiar pain hit Jackie’s heart. “It was. But
unfortunately
for me, my father decided to attempt the exorcism himself.”

Rachel’s face went slack with horror. “That’s awful.”

“Exorcisms can’t be performed by just anyone. You have to be a priest and have permission from the church itself. My father was just a tailor with no experience in rituals as damaging as an exorcism.”

The memories flooded back, blindingly hot and real. She saw herself as she had been at thirteen, wild dark hair and slender, coltish body. She’d been tied to a chair in the basement, her hands bound behind her back by twine with more of it wrapped around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides. Her legs had kicked helplessly until he bound those too.

She remembered pleading with him, begging him to leave her alone. His face had flushed red with indignation, with hate. He’d crossed her forehead, then himself, angry tears in his eyes.

Be gone, devil!
he’d cried and splashed holy water on her face. He’d thrust the wooden cross of his beloved heirloom rosary before her, as if eager to see her flesh burn from the holy image.

Except it hadn’t because she wasn’t possessed. Words could not convince him, leaving her helpless and at his mercy. Instead of showing compassion he only ramped up his efforts.

In his right hand he’d clutched the
Rite of Exorcism
, a book filled with the prayers needed for the ritual. He’d read them off fervently, feverishly, nearly mad in his attempt to free her from the Devil. To free her from her gift.

Therefore, I adjure you every unclean spirit, every specter from hell, every satanic power, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who was led into the desert after His baptism by John to vanquish you in your citadel, to cease your assaults against the creature whom He has formed from the slime of the earth for His own honor and glory…

“What happened after?” Rachel asked, bringing Jackie back to the present.

“He looked me in the eyes and asked me if I was myself again,” Jackie replied, remembering distinctly how there was more revulsion in his expression than concern.

“What did you tell him?”

“I said I had always been myself.” She wiped away a tear that fell down her cheek. “So he left me there and went to talk to the priest again. When the priest found out what he did, he rescued me from the basement and threatened to contact the police if my father attempted to harm me again.”

“Did he?”

Jackie brushed back a strand of hair that the wind had tossed into her face. “He kept his promise because he had to, but that didn’t stop him from forcing me to pray and fast, which the priest recommended. He spread blessed salt around my room and burned blessed incense and candles all hours of the day, consumed by his belief that I was still under the influence of Satan. We didn’t speak to each other for months.

“I had a very strict curfew. I was only allowed to leave the house for school and church, and as a result I had few friends and no one I could trust. The only consolation was that I still had Henry and the other spirits, and they kept me hopeful that my future was brighter than my father’s prison.”

“I’m sorry.” Rachel bit her lower lip, unsure what else to say.

Jackie’s mouth curved. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not. My experiences shaped and empowered me. By the time I ran away from home at sixteen, I was stronger than I ever imagined I could be.”

“So where did you go?”

“I had a little bit of money stashed away, enough to get me on a bus south. I went as far as I could go and ended up in Toledo. I found a local Catholic church and offered to clean toilets and sweep floors in exchange for a place to stay. They took me in, and also helped me get work organizing books at the local library.

“But I couldn’t stay in Toledo. I had to keep moving, to get as far away from my father as I could. A few months later I’d saved up enough money to take a bus down to Louisville where I got a job waiting tables with a room to stay in above the restaurant. It wasn’t much, but I was free.”

“Did your father ever find you?”

Jackie shook her head. “No. I don’t know if he even tried. I imagine he was happy to be rid of me.”

“But you were still his daughter, despite everything,” Rachel argued, brows creased. “He must have loved you still.”