Authors: Maggie Toussaint
Two survivors, slogging down the highway of life. We had food, shelter, and people who cared for us, but we’d come to this place broken. Hobo seemed worry free, but I couldn’t put my past behind me so easily.
I’d married young, swept off my feet by a high school charmer with emerald green eyes. Roland Powell spirited me around the country as his Army postings changed. Two and a half years ago he’d gone missing on an assignment. Six months later, the Army declared him dead, but they’d stonewalled me on his death benefits.
My daughter and I returned to coastal Georgia, back to the house I’d inherited from my grandmother, back to the town where Daddy’s psychic ability was valued.
Back to the place where people knew I had the same ability.
For most of my adult life, I’d run from that extrasensory heritage, but it had saved my life a few months ago. Now I wanted to use it for profit. Only I hadn’t had the requisite training. Last night’s dream had been unsettling. That was the trouble with opening doors—once you walked through them, you were in a different place, with different rules, where the line between danger and safety blurred.
“You doing all right, Hobo?” I asked the dog between strides.
Hobo’s head bobbed encouragingly.
We lapped the neighborhood twice. On the second pass, I was more aware of the brown lawns, the brick house that needed my landscaping services, the thin clouds overhead, and the ocean fresh breeze.
A bead of sweat trickled down the channel of my spine; more gathered at my hairline under my ball cap. I was blessed with an athletic build and a good metabolism, and so far I’d been healthy as a horse. Larissa, too, except for her needing braces. Crooked teeth being a defect in the Powell lineage. No one in the Nesbitt family had needed braces before.
I snorted. How could I blame the Powells for faulty genetic material when my ten-year-old daughter had inherited the Nesbitt psychic ability? That sobering thought put matters in perspective.
Back at the Rankin house, I unclipped Hobo’s leash. He sniffed around his fenced yard, played fetch for a bit, and licked my hand. “Good dog.” I rubbed beneath his ears until his eyes closed in bliss. Then he rolled over so that I could rub his tummy.
The rhythmic stroking calmed my thoughts. Setting aside the dream of the crying woman, I wondered about the bones I’d found. Did those people have a great dog like Hobo? Had they enjoyed living by the sea?
What had their lives been like?
They’d been formally dressed, with hats. The man wore a waistcoat and breeches, the woman a long flowing gown. Their antiquated clothing reminded me of a museum.
A museum! I could approximate the era through the clothing styles. Wait a minute. I’d seen clothing like this before. Roland and I had strolled through a re-creation of Colonial Williamsburg when Larissa was an infant. The people in my vision were dressed similarly.
Euphoria swept through me, and I clapped my hands. “Colonists, Hobo!” The dog squirmed enthusiastically on the ground, his paw knocking into my ball cap. I fixed my hat and went back to rubbing the dog’s tummy.
If my graves were of colonists, the Munro family could be the people I was looking for. Scottish Highlanders had settled the Georgia frontier. Only the family at Mallow hadn’t thrived.
“Wasn’t such a good start, was it, boy?” Hobo cocked his head at my grimace. “I saw them burying their son. Then I saw the man burying his wife and a baby. That was a huge price to pay for a fresh start.”
I could search online historical databases at the library. That’s what I’d do. I’d prove to the sheriff that I was an asset to his staff.
“I’ll be back this evening.” I herded Hobo inside his house. I had this pet gig through the weekend.
My truck came into view, and I noted a long stick on the driveway behind it. Best move that out of the way. The sun shone brightly on the gray stick. Odd. It looked too straight to be an oak branch. My breath caught in recognition. It wasn’t a stick.
“Sss-snake,” I stammered.
Terror struck lightning-bolt fast, molding my sneakers to the concrete driveway. Adrenaline poured into my veins, and I considered leaping on top of my truck. In the blink of an eye, I was five years old again, staring down the throat of a venomous cottonmouth.
Move, my brain urged. Run. Get far away from here.
My feet refused, but my heart raced. I tried to think. This snake didn’t have bright coloration. There were no telltale diamonds on his unremarkable skin. No triangular head. No rattles, either.
A good snake. A rat snake, most likely.
Not a life or death situation.
I stomped my feet to make noise. “Go on from here.” I hoped the snake would slither off on its own.
It didn’t move.
With the Rankins’ garage in front of me and the snake behind, I couldn’t back out without running over the snake. Though I didn’t like snakes, I wouldn’t intentionally hurt any living creature. I grabbed a hoe to encourage the snake along. Finally, the reptile edged under the sago palm fronds.
Whew. Crisis averted. My heart rate slowed.
I tossed the hoe in my truck and realized the sheriff still had my shovels. I needed those tools. Bad enough I had to replace my trowel a few weeks ago. What if I got a call today for a landscaping job and the sheriff had my tools?
The jail wasn’t far from the library. I’d pick up my shovels first and hit the library second.
Easy-peasy.
I should’ve known that anything involving the sheriff wouldn’t be easy.
“Come on in.” Sheriff Wayne Thompson gestured toward my tools over in the corner. “You paint those orange paw prints on the handles?”
I perched on an upright chair. It was one thing to decide to consult for the sheriff. But sitting here in his office under his watchful cop gaze while being bombarded by the emotions trapped in this building was something else indeed. Success in this potential career meant putting myself in harm’s way. It meant dwelling in an unstable energy field.
Nothing a determined woman couldn’t surmount.
Now that I might be working here, I had more curiosity about this office space. I tried out my version of cop eyes, assessing, weighing, deciding. Not much had changed since I was here a few months back. No curtains to soften the glare from the high transom window. No knickknacks to smooth the sharp angles of the serviceable desk, chairs, and filing cabinets. No rug for the tile floor.
All hard edges, like the man opposite me.
Athletics had saved Wayne from his neglectful and abusive parents. Sports had given him the confidence to become a cop and had saved him from being on the other side of the jail cell.
I realized the silence had stretched too long. The sheriff was no doubt wondering if I’d lost my mind. I hastened to answer his question about my tool handles.
“My daughter drew those paw prints. She customized my tools, said it would help me keep track of them.” I paused for a moment, wondering how to proceed. “Did you find more bodies?”
He tapped his fingertips together. “One more skull. Not two more, as you said.”
My nerves flared. I waited a beat to respond. “I’m sure there were three. One of them was a baby. Do you know who they are?”
“No. Do you?”
Was he up to something? If he learned of my research intentions, would he claim my ideas as his own? “What do you mean?”
“Did they tell you their names?”
His unblinking stare got to me. My voice rose a bit. “They might have if your trigger-happy deputy hadn’t lit me up with his Taser. As it was, I only saw them being buried.”
“That is some weird stuff you got going on up in your head.”
He didn’t know the half of it, and I wasn’t gonna tell him. “What did the coroner find out?”
“Not much since your client”—he grimaced as he spoke, adding extra syllables to the final word—“since your Mrs. Got Rocks client ordered the state archaeologist down here. Bo’s hands are tied eight ways to Sunday.”
“Is she here already?”
He nodded. “Gail Bergeron arrived this morning. About gave Bo a heart attack. They have a history, those two.”
“She’ll prove I’m right.” I held his gaze. “Then you’ll hire me as a consultant.”
“The deal was that I had to close the case.” He folded his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair. “There’s no way this moldy-oldie will close.”
He expected me to fail? My competitive instincts kicked in. “Wait and see. When can my client get her yard back?”
He shrugged one shoulder, as if it wasn’t worth a two-shoulder effort. “It’s up to that Bergeron woman. When she completes her inquiry, it will be released.”
“I hope she works fast.”
Wayne leaned forward, his palms flattening on top of his uncluttered desk. His sensual eyebrows waggled suggestively. “She doesn’t work nearly as fast as I do. How about I take you out for lunch today?”
I rose to get away from his musky cologne. “Not happening. I wish you’d get over yourself.” Wayne had been the high school quarterback, the man who walked on water all four years of school, the man who had slept his way through almost the entire female alphabet. But not me. It irked him that I’d said no.
That I still said no.
He clutched his heart in mock agony. “You’re killing me, babe.”
It looked like the only luck I’d have at the library would be bad luck. Our courthouse had burned twice in its history, and Colonial land records had literally gone up in smoke. Also the first three United States Censuses of 1790, 1800, and 1810 were missing for Georgia. In 1820, there were only breakdowns to the county level, which meant no individual listings by heads of households. No help there.
I caught a break in the library’s Special Collections section. A book of photocopied journal entries from Annabel Broadfield McCrae, something I picked up randomly, listed the deaths of her grandfather’s first family, the Munros. The four-year-old boy drowned, while the mother and infant daughter succumbed to a marsh fever. They’d been buried on family land.
Excitement pulsed through me. This was fabulous. I read on, but the only other relevant observation was that Robert Munro seemed sad the rest of his life. In my mind, he mourned the loss of his first love, Selena.
I couldn’t prove this family lived at Mallow, but it felt like I was closing in on the truth, which is what I wanted.
I felt drained after leaving the library. On a whim, I drove out to my parents’ house to recharge. I didn’t expect to see anyone, but Daddy was expecting me. He sat on a shaded bench in their front yard.
Though he wore his standard garb of faded jeans, long-sleeve T-shirt, and flip-flops, a sense of weariness pervaded his space. His frame bent forward; even his ponytail drooped. When had Daddy gotten old? Seemed like yesterday when he introduced me to the world as his daughter.
“Hey, sunshine,” Daddy said as I sat beside him on the rough planks. “You here to talk to me?”
“I am.” I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “I haven’t been avoiding you, just avoiding this topic.” I noticed how quiet the house was. “Where’s Mama?”
Daddy studied the mockingbird and cardinal playing king of the bird feeder. “She’s visiting a friend. It’s the two of us.”
“Great.” But I didn’t mean great-great. I meant great in the what-have-I-gotten-myself-into mode. If Mama was around, I could bail out for a soothing cup of hot tea when the discussion got uncomfortable.
He turned his steady gaze to me. “Don’t be afraid. I’m your father, same as I’ve always been.”
The petulant child in me rebelled. I didn’t want the responsibility he wanted to yield. “You’re more than that, and you know it. You’re the county dreamwalker. Maybe even the region’s dreamwalker. Folks come to you for help, and you help them.”
“I can’t help everyone. But I try.” He nodded his head in the affirmative. “I try.” He interlaced his fingers in his lap, the picture of patience. However, the air around him snapped with current. “But this isn’t about me. This is about you, my beautiful daughter, who is coming to terms with her many talents.”
My cheeks stung under his compliment. “About that. I apologize for being such a snot-nosed kid about dreamwalking before. In my quest to be normal, I said hateful things. I’m sorry for that.”
His face relaxed a bit, the grayness lessened. “No need to apologize for being a teenager. Your mother and I rebelled against our parents, too.”
I’d never known my Nesbitt grandparents, but Mama’s family had been straitlaced to a fault. Janie and Norton Daughtry were pillars of the community. Grandmother Janie founded the historical society and the garden club.
“I kind of figured that, what with Mama being so different from Gran.” A grin warmed my face. “What about your folks? How come I don’t know much about them? Were they dream-walkers too?”
“My father was struck by lightning when I was three. I don’t recall much about him. My mother dreamwalked. The family trait is strongest in the female line.”
“Oh.” The ramifications of his comment sunk in. “You mean, I have as much ability as you do?”
“Probably more, but we’ll figure that out in time. The important thing is not to feel pressured.”
“Too late. I am worried sick. I can’t do what you do.”
“Chances are you can do it better. Tell me about your abilities.”
My jaw clenched at his request. I was sitting on a bench, talking about my abnormal abilities. How surreal was that? Who sat around talking about psychic talents?
Freaks?
Settle,
I told myself. I’m not abnormal. I’m normal for me. Who better to explain my abilities than the person who shared a similar profile and had had years of experience?
“The thing is, I’m not sure, myself.” I began slowly. “My gifts seem linked together. Hearing is the strongest, but that’s accentuated through touch. I can hear more and see more if I touch an object that someone with highly charged emotions handled. Other sensations come through distorted. And I have odd dreams on occasion, like last night.”
“Both Larissa and I picked up your distress call from Sparrow’s Point a few months back. How long have you been aware of your telepathic ability?”