What the Dead Want (14 page)

And now he is gone.

A
NNIE
'
S HOUSE SMELLED LIKE CINNAMON
AND SUGAR
cookies. It was a small yellow bungalow tucked into the wooded edge of the Shadow Grove estate.

The interior was airy, with wooden floors and simple braided rugs. Many knickknacks and jars of herbs lined the shelves. Gretchen was surprised to see there were no creepy old photographs at all—just some snapshots of smiling kids stuck to the refrigerator with magnets. It seemed like a perfectly normal place. Annie made a large pot of peppermint tea and put it on the table.

“Now,” she said. “What's going on?” She had a very wise face and a lovely melodic voice, and Gretchen was
mortified that she'd talked to her so disrespectfully earlier.

If Esther was really possessing her, and it seemed pretty true at this point, given the periodic nicotine withdrawal and urges to use foul language she was experiencing, she wished she could control it. But there was really no knowing when Esther would show up or why. If this was indeed why Esther had called her and asked her to come, she hoped it would all start to make more sense. The dizzy heady feeling of thinking another person's thoughts—especially if that person was an angry alcoholic genius—was pretty exhausting.

“That's what we're here to find out,” Hope said. “It seems there's an increase in activities over at the mansion.”

Annie nodded gravely. “There's only one Axton left. Only one chance to find a solution—to help those poor souls move on. I know Esther thought she could do it by photographing all of them. By making sure each one was accounted for, that their story was told. But your mothers were trying to do something different.”

Hope and Gretchen exchanged a look.

“And now I think Esther is finally on the same page,” Annie said.

Hope nodded slowly. “Accountability,” she said. “We concentrated on the names of the victims, instead of the killers. We just think of the killers as a natural part of
history—that they have no individual responsibility, that their families have no responsibility.”

“I don't know if that matters to the dead,” Annie said. “But it sure as hell matters to the living.”

“Can you tell us what really happened on the land all those years ago?” Hope asked Annie.

“I'm a medium,” Annie said. “A sensitive, a clairaudient. I
hear
their voices. It doesn't mean I know what's going on—especially if they're confused themselves. Which they are. Very. Believe me, I would like nothing more than for Fidelia to move on from here. I have been listening to her lament the death of her daughter and her marriage and the horror of the fire for more than twenty years of my life now. And all those men and women. I hear their voices too. So many of them. Like an invisible choir.” She looked weary. “I don't know how we'll ever reconcile those things.”

“Why do they choose you?” Gretchen asked. “I mean, why does Fidelia speak through you?”

“And you,” Annie said, looking at her seriously. “Esther has chosen you.”

Gretchen felt suddenly exhausted at her words, she wanted to go curl up in a ball.

“I know how you feel,” Annie said, reaching out to touch her arm. “It can take a lot out of you. I can't give you
any definitive answer. But I do know this. Some ghosts have unfinished business. Some have died in accidents, or their bodies become frail or weak or give out before they can do what they wanted in this world.”

“Esther killed herself,” Gretchen said. “It seems she wanted to be finished.”

Annie nodded. “Or she wanted to have her old vitality back, and thought the two of you would be a good team. She had work to do and couldn't do it in her own body. She needed your help, didn't have time to explain everything. Through you she's united the living Axtons with the dead.”

“But why doesn't she just tell me exactly what to do or what's going on?”

“You said it yourself earlier when you were yelling down by the pavilion—or Esther did—just because you're dead doesn't mean you have that much more information. You have some. But not all.”

“Can we ask Fidelia questions?” Hope said.

Annie nodded. “She's been here a lot lately. The anniversary . . .” This time she put her head down and rested it on the table, closed her eyes. Gretchen and Hope exchanged a look. The woman was clearly troubled by this terrible gift she had.

When she raised her head from the table it was a
completely different look than the one she'd had on stage in the pavilion. Whatever happened there had been partly a performance. This was stranger. Darker.

“The day,” Annie said. “
That
day. It was to be a
cele
bration
. Rebecca and Celia were going to get Communion in the church.” Her voice took on a harder sharper edge. She was somehow more articulate. “Valerie and I were so proud of our daughters.”

“The day of the fire?” Hope asked.

“Yes. When I got there half the congregation was missing. He'd told them to go home, that this was only for our ‘Negro brothers and sisters.' He drove every white parishioner away. Valerie's mother was looking at me confused and I shook my head—I didn't know what was going on. Was so angry at him. I . . . How could he have done this?”

“What is it?” Hope asked. “What happened? Who is he?”

“I could see it then, before anything happened at all, the fear in people's eyes. I'd seen that fear in my mother's eyes before. They knew. When I was just angry, they knew what was going to happen. That we were trapped. What a fool I am. The privileges I've had blinded me.

“And then we heard the thundering of hooves outside. He said we were protected in the church. We would not let them take this celebration away from us. That these two
girls were equal in the eyes of God. And he looked at me then with such a strange expression, a look of malice. ‘So you think Celia and Rebecca are no different?' he asked. ‘Yes,' I said, ‘of course, they are as alike as any two girls could be.' ‘And their mothers,' he said, ‘you and Valerie are no different. They have the same blood in their veins.' I looked at Valerie, and knew that he had found out we were cousins. The thing my mother had wanted to hide. I grabbed Valerie's hand and we rushed forward to the altar to grab the girls, to save them. I could see what he was going to do. But it was too late, it was too late.”

Annie took a great gasp of air and put her hands over her face. She slumped her head forward onto the table, began sobbing. “Please,” she said when she could finally speak. “I need to rest.”

It was terrible work, telling the ugly remorseful stories of the dead. Gretchen and Hope looked at one another. The weight of history was heavy upon their shoulders: All those people dying for a change: girls and women, friends and allies whose lives had been cut short. Fidelia and Valerie, Celia and Rebecca, Mona Axton and Sarah Green. And now, Gretchen thought, us.

Annie walked them out to the porch and hugged them good-bye. Just before she headed down the stairs Gretchen
took a quick breath.“One more question. Can you channel my mother?” she asked.

“I saw her reflected—or trapped. Trapped inside a mirror at the mansion. It's an object we've seen ghosts gravitate to.”

Annie looked at her sadly. Then closed her eyes. Gretchen felt her heart beating, strong and steady with hope and yearning to hear from her mother. It looked like Annie's eyes were moving back and forth behind her eyelids—sightlessly searching.

After some time she opened them. “She's not there.”

“What do you mean?” Gretchen asked.

“I'm sorry,” Annie said. “I'm not hearing anything, it's as if the sound is traveling from underwater. It's slow and distorted. I can't make it out.”

Gretchen turned away and looked out at the late afternoon sun on the trees. Hawk couldn't see Mona, Annie couldn't hear her. She was silent and invisible and impossible to reach. Could she have imagined the face in the mirror, imagined her mother's hands trying to reach her, pressed against the glass?

1861

George has taken over the parish until they send another pastor from Albany. But with the war and resources what they are, it seems he will be there for a long time. At least until the war is over, he said. As a pastor he is under no obligation to fight. And he has no desire to follow his brother's footsteps to the grave.

My parents let George come right into my room and shut the door. They no longer know what to do with me. I can barely eat, and I can hardly look at them.

He knelt beside my chair and held my hand. And though he has always looked like James, all I could see was their lack of resemblance. George's eager unsure self, his pride always kept in check but wanting to burst forth. His simple way of seeing the world. He had a medicinal smell on him that I'd detected before. I felt great pity and sorrow for him. Sorrow for all of us and the cause.

He said, I know what you want, Fidelia. I know you want to leave here and I can help you. And it was the smallest ray of sunlight in the darkest moment, the only thing that had made me feel like I might be able to be human again.

How? I asked.

Marry me, he said. Then you can leave your parents' house. And if you want to go to school I will pay for it. I will bring you there myself. I am not afraid to have an educated wife. I know
I'm not the pastor you dreamed of spending your life with. But in these rough times I think I might be able to suffice.

I held his hand and wept. Weak with grief, and pity, and despair. I could only nod my assent.

“Y
OU DON
'
T EVER WANT TO TALK WITH YOUR
MOTHER
?” Gretchen asked as they drove back out along the country road, somber and tired, the car making noises as if it were about to expire.

“I talk to my mother all the time,” Hope said. “She just never answers back.”

“You know what I mean, ask one of the spiritualists to contact her.”

“I know my mother,” Hope said. “If she had any choice in the matter she would have moved on.”

“All those people,” Gretchen said. “Trapped.”

“I kinda like you better as Esther,” Hope said, grinning.
“Let's go over the facts. We know now it was Celia and Rebecca's Communion. We know that for some reason the parishioners were deliberately shut in the church, the girls specifically, but why?”

“This morning,” Gretchen said, “back at the house, Celia told me she started the fire.”

“I know, but that makes no sense,” Hope said, turning away from the wheel long enough to give her an incredulous look.

“She said she wanted to fix the house ‘the way we fixed the church.' Then she said ‘we started the fire.'”

“I don't know if I believe it,” Hope said. “They say all kinds of crazy things just to upset people. They're very mean and angry girls.”

“Ghosts,” Gretchen corrected.

Hope switched on the headlights, but only one of them turned on.

“Their Communion was used as a reason to get a big crowd in that church,” Hope said. “Someone was sending a message with the girls, but why?”

“They had the same blood in their veins,” Gretchen said. Quoting Annie, quoting Fidelia.

Hope looked at her, raised her eyebrows and Gretchen felt goose bumps break out on her arms.

“So you and I are cousins,” Hope said.

“I had read in some of Fidelia's journals,” Getchen said, “about her friend Valerie Green and how her mother didn't want her to spend time with her.”

“Must have been afraid people would see the resemblance,” Hope said. “Even though Fidelia's family could pass for white. But Valerie's death should have meant the end of my family line if I'm descended directly from her. I'm assuming her husband was in the church too, unless he escaped.”

“And Green was her maiden name,” Gretchen said. “You must be descended from one of her sisters or brothers.”

“Which means we share a grandmother somewhere down the line,” Hope said. “Just like Fidelia and Valerie. It's a small world, city mouse.”

Hope reached over and squeezed her hand. “These are the best leads as we've had,” Hope said. “We need to get back and into those journals, get into my mother's files.”

As they pulled into the driveway of the Greens' house they could see that every light was on in the house, and that twangy, plunky music Hawk loved was wafting out the open windows and screen door.

“Great,” Hope said. “We're gone a few hours and our research assistant decides to have a party.”

The smell greeted them as soon as they walked in and it lifted Gretchen's spirits more than she could have imagined. “Simon,” she whispered to herself.

“Hel-
lo
?” he called, and then walked into the living room, beautifully himself in a pair of black skinny jeans and thin black-and-white striped T-shirt, his dyed red hair tastefully spiked with longer bangs falling in front of his face. “
Look
at you. You look like you've just seen a
ghost
!” he laughed, with his mocking, over-the-top drama. “Oh, not funny, not funny,
I
know.” He winked. “You must be Hope,” he said, taking Hope's hand. Then he leaned over and gave Gretchen a big kiss. He wrapped her up for a moment in his arms and held her close to his chest.

“You look exhausted. What's happened to your face? You need to get some ice on that swelling. We're going to eat, and then we're going to get you out of here,” he whispered.

“Simon, no . . . we've got to—”

“Don't argue,” he said. “We'll discuss it when you've had a real meal. I brought us takeout from Momofuku. Come in the kitchen.”

The fact that Simon had made a detour to pick up takeout before his car service trek across the state was so like him it made Gretchen grin.

Hawk was already at the table and had clearly finished
a plate of something wonderful. He had an amazed and sated look on his face. “I can't believe this kind of food even exists,” he said, looking meaningfully at his sister.

She rolled her eyes. “Is this really the time to be stuffing our faces?”

Simon sighed loudly. “Uh . . . yes? According to everything Hawk has told me, we're going to need to be our best here. You all look like you've been trying to run a marathon wearing Manolo Blahniks. Not a good look.” He set out plates of pork buns, roasted duck with lentils, ginger scallion pancakes, chanterelles with Asian pear. “And there's black sesame and red bean buns for dessert.”

Gretchen gave Simon another big hug. This was some of her favorite food, but after reading the things she'd been reading and thinking of people starved and running through the woods from their captors, she felt the full weight of her privileged life. She still enjoyed the food. She just didn't think of it anymore as a given.

“Sit down,” he said. “Eat.” And this time when she looked into his eyes she could see that he was truly worried, and that he was doing what he did best when things got bad: trying to comfort and entertain.

When they had polished off everything, Simon wanted the full story. “Now that we are fed and thinking more clearly . . . what
has
been going on here?”

The three of them looked away. After a minute Hope and Gretchen told the story of their talk with Fidelia and Annie, and Gretchen channeling Esther, and the general creepiness of Shadow Grove. They told him about the anniversary and about the things they'd already read and found. About Hawk and Hope's mother, Sarah, working together with Mona, about how they were related.

Simon looked at them, incredulous. “Is this some kind of joke?” he said. “Wait—is someone filming this? You guys are kidding, right?”

He looked from face to face. His eyes finally rested on Gretchen's. “Okay,” he whispered. “How can I help?”

“There's not a lot of time,” Hawk said. “Our refueling break is over. And I've got something to show you.”

They stood and cleared away the dishes and headed resolutely to the basement.

1861

Valerie and I are big as houses. And the midwife says the babies are due but two weeks apart.

Now how could that be? she asked me, winking. You and George really been married that long?

I smiled at her. This child is indeed an Axton, I told her. I place my hand on the Bible.

Instead of the parish being devastated by James's death, it seems to have deepened the faith. George has done more work than ever to bring our Negro brothers and sisters into the fold. He sought out people who lived in the neighboring towns, seemed to know where everyone lived, went door to door and told them of James's philosophy.

He has even seen to it that I don't have to go away for school but has found a correspondence school. While my belly swells, I write essays and put them in the mail to my professors.

In two years I will be a certified schoolteacher. My greatest hope is that someday after that I can go on to college. Someday when the baby is bigger.