Southern graves, p.5
Southern Graves, page 5
He scooted closer on the couch. Holding her hands, he whispered, “You can’t give up.”
And with those words spoken, with their sounds dying on the empty air, he crumpled to his knees. The sobs rolled up from his stomach and surged through his shoulders. His eyes stung as the tears poured out. Mrs. Porter rested her hands on his head, stroked his hair, and that simple kindness — that motherly kindness — wracked his body with wave after wave of deeper sorrow.
“It’ll be okay,” she said, soft and gentle.
“It’s not right. Not fair.”
She chuckled. “When has Life ever been right or fair?”
Trying to regain his composure, he sniffled hard before sitting back. “How can you be so calm?”
“Because, my sweet boy, I have you to take care of me, and I know you’ll do a wonderful job.” She leaned across the coffee table and snatched two tissues which she handed over. “Might take a little training, but you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll be great at it. Eventually.”
After blowing his nose, he said, “You’re the one taking care of me.”
“And this is the last time. After today, no more. You aren’t allowed to behave this way anymore. Our roles are about to reverse, and I’m going to have to rely on you. That’s the natural way of things. The parent takes care of the child, and in the end, the child takes care of the parent. Can I rely on you?”
“Of course. You know I’ll be here for you. Always.”
Grabbing her coffee, Mrs. Porter crossed her legs and smirked. “Look at the bright side — after I’m dead, you won’t have to listen to Sandra complain about me ever again.”
Max stared at her, stunned, and then broke out into laughter.
That night, when he returned home, Max walked by the Sandwich Boys’ room on his way to the bathroom and overheard PB saying, “No, man. Porn isn’t real. You gotta treat a woman with decency. The rest of that stuff will happen, but if you spend the whole date trying to make moves into her pants, you’ll probably fail and you’ll miss out on the entire date.”
Max had to pause. PB giving J dating advice — especially good advice — filled Max with a warmth that had been missing most of the day. Since PB had never been on a date, Max was even more impressed.
“— and when the movie’s going on,” PB said, “all you have to do is raise your arms in a big stretch, and then when you settle them down, you have your one arm around her shoulder.”
“Then what?” J asked.
Max wanted to barge in the room and explain that then he would be stuck with his arm around that girl’s shoulder for the next two hours, that the circulation would die all the way to his fingertips, leaving his arm numb and useless. The better way would be to hold her hand, making sure to share the armrest so neither one had that hunk of barely-padded metal digging in. But Max stopped himself.
If he burst in there and started spouting off advice, they wouldn’t listen. If anything, they might get angry at his eavesdropping. Or worse they might think he tried to control them — control their behavior. No, he had to come up with a smarter way to deal with the changes they were going through.
Besides, he could always talk with J in the morning.
Chapter 7
FRIDAY MORNING. Before Max ever had a chance to speak with J, the Sandwich Boys had sped off to school like squalls bursting through the kitchen, grabbing food, and exiting to storm other lands. Granted, he had been late getting out of bed, and an argument could be made that he had not tried hard to reach J before the boys left, but Max also knew he lacked the right words to say all the things on his mind. Yet. He needed time to think through matters. While he knew nothing about parenting a teenager, he felt fairly confident that any misspoken phrase would be trotted out at a later date to be used against him. Parenting needed its own Miranda warning. He had enough hauntings of the ghostly variety to deal with, he didn’t need to be haunted by his own words for the rest of his life.
Besides, J’s laughter had reverberated through the small house that morning, and Max did not want to damper the boy’s happiness. J’s first date would be that night. Clearly, he had decided that he wouldn’t let being attached to a ghost stand in his way. Or perhaps his faith in the Porter Agency to fix matters left him hopeful and able to focus on his future. Max had to marvel at the resilience of youth.
His own future did not look as bright. Sandra had arranged a meeting with Madame Ti for one o’clock that afternoon. Max didn’t really want to know how she had acquired the appointment, but she told him anyway. According to her, it had proven to be quite easy, in fact. Unlike previous head witches of North Carolina, Madame Ti welcomed listening to the concerns, ideas, and grievances of all the witches and covens around. At least, she made a show of listening.
“Whether she’ll actually pay attention to any of it is another matter,” Sandra had said. “And don’t let that open-door policy fool you — though she’s not brash in the way she controls the witches of North Carolina, Madame Ti has proven to be shrewd and quietly vicious.”
“Speak softly and carry a big stick type?”
“Yeah. Except you can do a lot more damage with witchcraft than a big stick.”
With several hours to go before partaking in this meeting he did not want to partake in, Max thought his time would be better spent by working than fretting. If they managed to convince Madame Ti into raising Miller’s bones from the depths of Badin Lake, they still needed to know where to bury them. Mapping the headstones of Graveyard Island’s three cemeteries would help more than anything else Max could think to do.
He began by visiting his usual graveyard websites and lamented the fact that he led a life which included the phrase usual graveyard websites. These sites listed every person buried throughout the state, providing burial dates, locations, and epitaphs given. Unfortunately, Graveyard Island had not been catalogued by anybody. Normally, if a cemetery was owned by a church, then the church uploaded burial information to the database. Same with synagogues and mosques and anybody in charge of keeping track of the dead.
But Graveyard Island did not appear to have any specific owner. Probably Alcoa or the state claimed the land, but the graves were simply an afterthought. After some deeper searching, however, Max managed to find several hiker reports. These came in many forms, but the idea ran similar throughout them all — a hiker or group of hikers left online reports of the trails they blazed throughout the world and the unique features they discovered. Oftentimes, these hikers would come across graves — part of forgotten family plots, unmarked burials, or in the case of Graveyard Island, the three cemeteries.
In several cases, these hikers took the time to catalog the names and other information they could read off the eroding headstones. The better hikers provided coordinates for each grave — quite useful considering the lack of any logical arrangement given to these particular graves. Most graveyards either buried the dead in straight rows and columns or in conformity with the contours of the land. But on Graveyard Island, the bodies appeared to be scattered about as if somebody had strewn pebbles on a map and wherever they landed marked where a body would be buried.
Max also stumbled on a YouTube video some paranormal investigators had made. It depicted the long walk along the railroad tracks toward the island. A half-dozen young people trudged all the way out with lots of chatter and heavy breathing. When they finally reached the island, they got confused and disoriented. Not in a mystical way. They were simply exhausted and lacked a map. They never did see a ghost.
None of this gathered information directly placed Private Alexander Miller’s grave to any singular spot, but it did narrow the options. At the very least, Max could mark locations on the map where Miller’s grave could not be. Slow going, meticulous work, but Max dug into it with vigor.
When Drummond had floated in, ready for their visit with Madame Ti, Max never noticed. It took Drummond’s strong voice calling for Sandra to join them before Max lifted his head. The old detective tipped his hat as Sandra entered. He had something to share.
“With everything you’ve already found out,” Drummond said, swaying with his hands in his coat pockets, “I figured I could make use of my time by asking around the Other about Miller. Not as many ghosts from the Civil War hang around the Other — most have either moved on or are too traumatized by that war to do anything but haunt the world — yet there are some. Nice fellows, too. Amazing how being removed from all the bile of the Confederacy and the self-righteousness of the Union left these young men with over a hundred years to grow up. The racism is gone. The savior complex is gone. The animosity is gone. All that’s left are people who care about their families and each other. Frankly, if these guys could be reborn as modern politicians, they’d save the world.”
“Pity it takes death and a century to drain all that hate out of people,” Max said.
Sandra said, “I take it that these born-again Civil War veterans shared something about Miller that’s useful.”
Clicking his tongue, Drummond said, “That’s the thing — nobody would talk about it.”
Max stopped his grave marking. “I thought you had a whole network of snitches.”
“None of them were willing to give me anything. Not even Miss 1800s, and she’s still crazy for me.”
Sandra said, “You think all of them could be afraid of Private Miller?”
“Doubt it. Not afraid of a witch, either. It’s rare for a living witch to be able to hold influence in the Other — not impossible, of course. You’ve heard me talk about it happening before, but it’s particularly rare. Fact is, in my nearly eighty years of death, I’ve only ever seen it happen that one time. And even then, the witch failed to strike fear in all of the ghosts.”
“Well, that’s great.” Max slammed shut his laptop. “This was supposed to be a minor little case to help J get his feet wet. Then we learn that Miller’s actually an attached ghost with lost bones and possibly a threat to J’s longevity. And now, he’s apparently a ghost that’s freaking out all the ghosts in the Other. Can we all agree that this keeps taking steps into a much darker and more dangerous path?”
“No argument from me. But don’t think that’s going to change matters regarding J.”
“Why not?”
“You want to handle this one, doll?”
Sandra moved closer to Max and by doing so, changed the timbre of the entire room. She was like the pink hues of dawn cracking over the dark horizon. “Think it through, honey. How will J see it? This is his first big case, one that he brought to us, and he’s already shown that he can’t be deterred off it with ease.”
“We’re the parents here. We put our foot down. It’s too dangerous.”
“We can do that. But not without consequences.”
“He’ll be mad, that’s all. He’ll get over it. We’ll try again after we dislodge Miller and find a safer case.”
“You’re focusing on the wrong thing. If we throw him off this case, if we really do that, then we’ll destroy any trust he has in us.”
“What, then? We’re just expected to let him walk into something so frightening that even the ghosts in the Other don’t want to talk about it?”
Sandra gave Max a long hug. “What we do is treat him like a full member of the team. He’ll face the same threats that we all do. Because anything else is doomed to fail, will ruin our relationship with him, and in the end, he’ll simply be that much less prepared to deal with future cases. Not to mention whatever the results from Miller turn out to be.”
Max pictured that first day from long ago — PB and J sitting in his downtown office. The way J looked when PB first suggested that if he was going to work for Max, then J had to be hired, too. Tough, defiant, streetwise and doubting all the possibilities of the world. “He’s so young.”
“Not as young as you think. We’ll use everything in our power to make sure he comes through this in one piece. Just like we do for each other.” She kissed Max’s cheek and stepped back. “That starts with the three of us going to meet Madame Ti. You see? I’m sure J would love to join us today, but no matter how much he might think it’s cool to talk with a witch like her, we have to make sure that never happens.”
“Finally, something I agree with. I think I even made that point recently.”
“That’s how we’ll protect him. It’s the only way.”
Drummond clapped his hands together once. “Okay. Good. That’s settled. Let’s hop to it and get this over with.”
Chapter 8
AT NOON, THE DRIZZLE BEGAN, and by one o’clock, rain drove down in sheets. Max and Sandra stood under the canvas awning of a funeral parlor in the city and listened to the drumbeat. Drummond had the decency to float in the rain so as not to crowd the two living people with his ghostly chill, but Max shivered anyway.
“Should we knock on the door?” he asked.
Sandra glanced at the entrance with a raised eyebrow. “We’re not going in there. We’re waiting to be picked up.”
The wind blew harder, sending sharp-bullet raindrops against their bodies. Max put his back into the gusts while Sandra bounced from one foot to the other in front of him. Trying to keep warm, they huddled closer. At length, a gray minivan pulled alongside the curb. The side door slid open, and the driver waved them in.
Max and Sandra scooched across the bench seat as the side door closed. A ruby-haired woman turned back and smiled. “Hi there,” she said with a strong North Carolinian accent. “My name’s Ruby.” She rolled her eyes to look at her hair.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Max and this is Sandra.”
“And your ghost is Drummond, right?”
Drummond had settled into the passenger seat, but Ruby did not look at him. Interesting. “That’s right,” Max said. “Where are we headed?”
“Sorry. Y’all don’t get to know that.”
She pulled into traffic with her windshield wipers slapping back and forth rapidly. They weaved their way down to 1st Street and out of the city, passing the baseball stadium, and curving south onto Peters Creek Parkway.
“Will this drive take long?” Max asked.
Ruby peeked in the rearview mirror. “Time is a relative construct. Would you like some music?”
“No, thank you.”
She flicked on the radio and tuned to a classic rock station.
“Oh, she’s a real peach.” Drummond said, and Max could picture the spit flying off his mouth — if a ghost could do such a thing.
They continued south for nearly twenty minutes. The rain backed off and finally stopped, but the water spluttering off the road dotted the windshield. As the sun broke through cracks in the clouds, they pulled off at an abandoned gas station. A maroon minivan had been parked along the side near the restroom doors. Ruby stopped next to it.
“Transfer time.”
Max and Sandra crossed over into the other minivan as Drummond floated through with them. After sitting in the driver’s seat, Ruby handed back two black blindfolds.
“Really?” Sandra said. “We have a ghost with us. He’s going to be able to tell us exactly where we are.”
“I don’t make the rules.” Ruby started the engine and waited.
With a huff, Max said, “Okay. But I warn you, I might fall asleep wearing one of these things.”
As Sandra tied on her blindfold, she added, “Drummond, you know what to do.”
“Don’t worry,” the old ghost said. “I’ll make sure you know exactly where we end up.”
Even without Drummond’s help, Max felt confident he knew the direction they drove in. North. In fact, Ruby made little effort to disguise that they retraced the same path they had come down. No winding turns, no blasting music to hide sounds, nothing to prevent Max from listening and feeling and keeping track of their path. But he did have Drummond which not only confirmed his suspicions but added a few items Max could not tell — or, at least, he would not have been able to tell until the blindfolds were removed.
“Will you look at that,” Drummond said, and Max had to bite back a sarcastic comment pointing out that he couldn’t look at anything. “Ruby here is wearing a wig. Looks like she’s more Blondie now.”
As they drove on, Max felt Sandra’s hand crawl over. Their fingers laced together. He could read in her grip that she wasn’t nervous — just keeping their unity strong. He leaned closer and kissed her on the cheek.
“We’re back in the city,” Drummond said as the sound of rain pattered against the rooftop. “She’s turning onto Broad Street.”
Still heading north. Another turn on 5th Street, and then another on Summit. If Ruby thought she could confuse Max by doubling back and crossing to the other side of town, she didn’t know anything about him — the streets of Winston-Salem were old friends.
Plus, he had a ghost watching everything. Which they had told her. That suggested that either she didn’t believe them about Drummond or her orders required her to take this specific path, no matter how pointless.
After several more turns, however, the van took an unexpected right, dipped down a tight ramp, and came to a stop. Max tried to think of what parking structure went down in such a way at this location, and he came up empty.
“We’re just off Motor Road,” Drummond said. “Near that tractor company, but I can’t say I knew about this parking structure. From the outside, it’s nothing but some homes. Under here, though, it’s kind of impressive.”
Ruby said, “You can take a look now.”
Max and Sandra removed their blindfolds. They were in a parking garage, but one set up for private use. Though large enough to house at least ten cars, Max saw only the minivan and one other — a red 911 Porsche, probably from the 1980s.
“This way,” Ruby said, indeed wearing blonde hair now. Her accent had dropped away, too.
She led them to a service elevator capable of loading in one of the cars. With their footsteps echoing, they entered the elevator. Ruby never dropped her personable smile as they descended, but it looked forced and somewhat professional — like a butler of a grand estate.
And with those words spoken, with their sounds dying on the empty air, he crumpled to his knees. The sobs rolled up from his stomach and surged through his shoulders. His eyes stung as the tears poured out. Mrs. Porter rested her hands on his head, stroked his hair, and that simple kindness — that motherly kindness — wracked his body with wave after wave of deeper sorrow.
“It’ll be okay,” she said, soft and gentle.
“It’s not right. Not fair.”
She chuckled. “When has Life ever been right or fair?”
Trying to regain his composure, he sniffled hard before sitting back. “How can you be so calm?”
“Because, my sweet boy, I have you to take care of me, and I know you’ll do a wonderful job.” She leaned across the coffee table and snatched two tissues which she handed over. “Might take a little training, but you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll be great at it. Eventually.”
After blowing his nose, he said, “You’re the one taking care of me.”
“And this is the last time. After today, no more. You aren’t allowed to behave this way anymore. Our roles are about to reverse, and I’m going to have to rely on you. That’s the natural way of things. The parent takes care of the child, and in the end, the child takes care of the parent. Can I rely on you?”
“Of course. You know I’ll be here for you. Always.”
Grabbing her coffee, Mrs. Porter crossed her legs and smirked. “Look at the bright side — after I’m dead, you won’t have to listen to Sandra complain about me ever again.”
Max stared at her, stunned, and then broke out into laughter.
That night, when he returned home, Max walked by the Sandwich Boys’ room on his way to the bathroom and overheard PB saying, “No, man. Porn isn’t real. You gotta treat a woman with decency. The rest of that stuff will happen, but if you spend the whole date trying to make moves into her pants, you’ll probably fail and you’ll miss out on the entire date.”
Max had to pause. PB giving J dating advice — especially good advice — filled Max with a warmth that had been missing most of the day. Since PB had never been on a date, Max was even more impressed.
“— and when the movie’s going on,” PB said, “all you have to do is raise your arms in a big stretch, and then when you settle them down, you have your one arm around her shoulder.”
“Then what?” J asked.
Max wanted to barge in the room and explain that then he would be stuck with his arm around that girl’s shoulder for the next two hours, that the circulation would die all the way to his fingertips, leaving his arm numb and useless. The better way would be to hold her hand, making sure to share the armrest so neither one had that hunk of barely-padded metal digging in. But Max stopped himself.
If he burst in there and started spouting off advice, they wouldn’t listen. If anything, they might get angry at his eavesdropping. Or worse they might think he tried to control them — control their behavior. No, he had to come up with a smarter way to deal with the changes they were going through.
Besides, he could always talk with J in the morning.
Chapter 7
FRIDAY MORNING. Before Max ever had a chance to speak with J, the Sandwich Boys had sped off to school like squalls bursting through the kitchen, grabbing food, and exiting to storm other lands. Granted, he had been late getting out of bed, and an argument could be made that he had not tried hard to reach J before the boys left, but Max also knew he lacked the right words to say all the things on his mind. Yet. He needed time to think through matters. While he knew nothing about parenting a teenager, he felt fairly confident that any misspoken phrase would be trotted out at a later date to be used against him. Parenting needed its own Miranda warning. He had enough hauntings of the ghostly variety to deal with, he didn’t need to be haunted by his own words for the rest of his life.
Besides, J’s laughter had reverberated through the small house that morning, and Max did not want to damper the boy’s happiness. J’s first date would be that night. Clearly, he had decided that he wouldn’t let being attached to a ghost stand in his way. Or perhaps his faith in the Porter Agency to fix matters left him hopeful and able to focus on his future. Max had to marvel at the resilience of youth.
His own future did not look as bright. Sandra had arranged a meeting with Madame Ti for one o’clock that afternoon. Max didn’t really want to know how she had acquired the appointment, but she told him anyway. According to her, it had proven to be quite easy, in fact. Unlike previous head witches of North Carolina, Madame Ti welcomed listening to the concerns, ideas, and grievances of all the witches and covens around. At least, she made a show of listening.
“Whether she’ll actually pay attention to any of it is another matter,” Sandra had said. “And don’t let that open-door policy fool you — though she’s not brash in the way she controls the witches of North Carolina, Madame Ti has proven to be shrewd and quietly vicious.”
“Speak softly and carry a big stick type?”
“Yeah. Except you can do a lot more damage with witchcraft than a big stick.”
With several hours to go before partaking in this meeting he did not want to partake in, Max thought his time would be better spent by working than fretting. If they managed to convince Madame Ti into raising Miller’s bones from the depths of Badin Lake, they still needed to know where to bury them. Mapping the headstones of Graveyard Island’s three cemeteries would help more than anything else Max could think to do.
He began by visiting his usual graveyard websites and lamented the fact that he led a life which included the phrase usual graveyard websites. These sites listed every person buried throughout the state, providing burial dates, locations, and epitaphs given. Unfortunately, Graveyard Island had not been catalogued by anybody. Normally, if a cemetery was owned by a church, then the church uploaded burial information to the database. Same with synagogues and mosques and anybody in charge of keeping track of the dead.
But Graveyard Island did not appear to have any specific owner. Probably Alcoa or the state claimed the land, but the graves were simply an afterthought. After some deeper searching, however, Max managed to find several hiker reports. These came in many forms, but the idea ran similar throughout them all — a hiker or group of hikers left online reports of the trails they blazed throughout the world and the unique features they discovered. Oftentimes, these hikers would come across graves — part of forgotten family plots, unmarked burials, or in the case of Graveyard Island, the three cemeteries.
In several cases, these hikers took the time to catalog the names and other information they could read off the eroding headstones. The better hikers provided coordinates for each grave — quite useful considering the lack of any logical arrangement given to these particular graves. Most graveyards either buried the dead in straight rows and columns or in conformity with the contours of the land. But on Graveyard Island, the bodies appeared to be scattered about as if somebody had strewn pebbles on a map and wherever they landed marked where a body would be buried.
Max also stumbled on a YouTube video some paranormal investigators had made. It depicted the long walk along the railroad tracks toward the island. A half-dozen young people trudged all the way out with lots of chatter and heavy breathing. When they finally reached the island, they got confused and disoriented. Not in a mystical way. They were simply exhausted and lacked a map. They never did see a ghost.
None of this gathered information directly placed Private Alexander Miller’s grave to any singular spot, but it did narrow the options. At the very least, Max could mark locations on the map where Miller’s grave could not be. Slow going, meticulous work, but Max dug into it with vigor.
When Drummond had floated in, ready for their visit with Madame Ti, Max never noticed. It took Drummond’s strong voice calling for Sandra to join them before Max lifted his head. The old detective tipped his hat as Sandra entered. He had something to share.
“With everything you’ve already found out,” Drummond said, swaying with his hands in his coat pockets, “I figured I could make use of my time by asking around the Other about Miller. Not as many ghosts from the Civil War hang around the Other — most have either moved on or are too traumatized by that war to do anything but haunt the world — yet there are some. Nice fellows, too. Amazing how being removed from all the bile of the Confederacy and the self-righteousness of the Union left these young men with over a hundred years to grow up. The racism is gone. The savior complex is gone. The animosity is gone. All that’s left are people who care about their families and each other. Frankly, if these guys could be reborn as modern politicians, they’d save the world.”
“Pity it takes death and a century to drain all that hate out of people,” Max said.
Sandra said, “I take it that these born-again Civil War veterans shared something about Miller that’s useful.”
Clicking his tongue, Drummond said, “That’s the thing — nobody would talk about it.”
Max stopped his grave marking. “I thought you had a whole network of snitches.”
“None of them were willing to give me anything. Not even Miss 1800s, and she’s still crazy for me.”
Sandra said, “You think all of them could be afraid of Private Miller?”
“Doubt it. Not afraid of a witch, either. It’s rare for a living witch to be able to hold influence in the Other — not impossible, of course. You’ve heard me talk about it happening before, but it’s particularly rare. Fact is, in my nearly eighty years of death, I’ve only ever seen it happen that one time. And even then, the witch failed to strike fear in all of the ghosts.”
“Well, that’s great.” Max slammed shut his laptop. “This was supposed to be a minor little case to help J get his feet wet. Then we learn that Miller’s actually an attached ghost with lost bones and possibly a threat to J’s longevity. And now, he’s apparently a ghost that’s freaking out all the ghosts in the Other. Can we all agree that this keeps taking steps into a much darker and more dangerous path?”
“No argument from me. But don’t think that’s going to change matters regarding J.”
“Why not?”
“You want to handle this one, doll?”
Sandra moved closer to Max and by doing so, changed the timbre of the entire room. She was like the pink hues of dawn cracking over the dark horizon. “Think it through, honey. How will J see it? This is his first big case, one that he brought to us, and he’s already shown that he can’t be deterred off it with ease.”
“We’re the parents here. We put our foot down. It’s too dangerous.”
“We can do that. But not without consequences.”
“He’ll be mad, that’s all. He’ll get over it. We’ll try again after we dislodge Miller and find a safer case.”
“You’re focusing on the wrong thing. If we throw him off this case, if we really do that, then we’ll destroy any trust he has in us.”
“What, then? We’re just expected to let him walk into something so frightening that even the ghosts in the Other don’t want to talk about it?”
Sandra gave Max a long hug. “What we do is treat him like a full member of the team. He’ll face the same threats that we all do. Because anything else is doomed to fail, will ruin our relationship with him, and in the end, he’ll simply be that much less prepared to deal with future cases. Not to mention whatever the results from Miller turn out to be.”
Max pictured that first day from long ago — PB and J sitting in his downtown office. The way J looked when PB first suggested that if he was going to work for Max, then J had to be hired, too. Tough, defiant, streetwise and doubting all the possibilities of the world. “He’s so young.”
“Not as young as you think. We’ll use everything in our power to make sure he comes through this in one piece. Just like we do for each other.” She kissed Max’s cheek and stepped back. “That starts with the three of us going to meet Madame Ti. You see? I’m sure J would love to join us today, but no matter how much he might think it’s cool to talk with a witch like her, we have to make sure that never happens.”
“Finally, something I agree with. I think I even made that point recently.”
“That’s how we’ll protect him. It’s the only way.”
Drummond clapped his hands together once. “Okay. Good. That’s settled. Let’s hop to it and get this over with.”
Chapter 8
AT NOON, THE DRIZZLE BEGAN, and by one o’clock, rain drove down in sheets. Max and Sandra stood under the canvas awning of a funeral parlor in the city and listened to the drumbeat. Drummond had the decency to float in the rain so as not to crowd the two living people with his ghostly chill, but Max shivered anyway.
“Should we knock on the door?” he asked.
Sandra glanced at the entrance with a raised eyebrow. “We’re not going in there. We’re waiting to be picked up.”
The wind blew harder, sending sharp-bullet raindrops against their bodies. Max put his back into the gusts while Sandra bounced from one foot to the other in front of him. Trying to keep warm, they huddled closer. At length, a gray minivan pulled alongside the curb. The side door slid open, and the driver waved them in.
Max and Sandra scooched across the bench seat as the side door closed. A ruby-haired woman turned back and smiled. “Hi there,” she said with a strong North Carolinian accent. “My name’s Ruby.” She rolled her eyes to look at her hair.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Max and this is Sandra.”
“And your ghost is Drummond, right?”
Drummond had settled into the passenger seat, but Ruby did not look at him. Interesting. “That’s right,” Max said. “Where are we headed?”
“Sorry. Y’all don’t get to know that.”
She pulled into traffic with her windshield wipers slapping back and forth rapidly. They weaved their way down to 1st Street and out of the city, passing the baseball stadium, and curving south onto Peters Creek Parkway.
“Will this drive take long?” Max asked.
Ruby peeked in the rearview mirror. “Time is a relative construct. Would you like some music?”
“No, thank you.”
She flicked on the radio and tuned to a classic rock station.
“Oh, she’s a real peach.” Drummond said, and Max could picture the spit flying off his mouth — if a ghost could do such a thing.
They continued south for nearly twenty minutes. The rain backed off and finally stopped, but the water spluttering off the road dotted the windshield. As the sun broke through cracks in the clouds, they pulled off at an abandoned gas station. A maroon minivan had been parked along the side near the restroom doors. Ruby stopped next to it.
“Transfer time.”
Max and Sandra crossed over into the other minivan as Drummond floated through with them. After sitting in the driver’s seat, Ruby handed back two black blindfolds.
“Really?” Sandra said. “We have a ghost with us. He’s going to be able to tell us exactly where we are.”
“I don’t make the rules.” Ruby started the engine and waited.
With a huff, Max said, “Okay. But I warn you, I might fall asleep wearing one of these things.”
As Sandra tied on her blindfold, she added, “Drummond, you know what to do.”
“Don’t worry,” the old ghost said. “I’ll make sure you know exactly where we end up.”
Even without Drummond’s help, Max felt confident he knew the direction they drove in. North. In fact, Ruby made little effort to disguise that they retraced the same path they had come down. No winding turns, no blasting music to hide sounds, nothing to prevent Max from listening and feeling and keeping track of their path. But he did have Drummond which not only confirmed his suspicions but added a few items Max could not tell — or, at least, he would not have been able to tell until the blindfolds were removed.
“Will you look at that,” Drummond said, and Max had to bite back a sarcastic comment pointing out that he couldn’t look at anything. “Ruby here is wearing a wig. Looks like she’s more Blondie now.”
As they drove on, Max felt Sandra’s hand crawl over. Their fingers laced together. He could read in her grip that she wasn’t nervous — just keeping their unity strong. He leaned closer and kissed her on the cheek.
“We’re back in the city,” Drummond said as the sound of rain pattered against the rooftop. “She’s turning onto Broad Street.”
Still heading north. Another turn on 5th Street, and then another on Summit. If Ruby thought she could confuse Max by doubling back and crossing to the other side of town, she didn’t know anything about him — the streets of Winston-Salem were old friends.
Plus, he had a ghost watching everything. Which they had told her. That suggested that either she didn’t believe them about Drummond or her orders required her to take this specific path, no matter how pointless.
After several more turns, however, the van took an unexpected right, dipped down a tight ramp, and came to a stop. Max tried to think of what parking structure went down in such a way at this location, and he came up empty.
“We’re just off Motor Road,” Drummond said. “Near that tractor company, but I can’t say I knew about this parking structure. From the outside, it’s nothing but some homes. Under here, though, it’s kind of impressive.”
Ruby said, “You can take a look now.”
Max and Sandra removed their blindfolds. They were in a parking garage, but one set up for private use. Though large enough to house at least ten cars, Max saw only the minivan and one other — a red 911 Porsche, probably from the 1980s.
“This way,” Ruby said, indeed wearing blonde hair now. Her accent had dropped away, too.
She led them to a service elevator capable of loading in one of the cars. With their footsteps echoing, they entered the elevator. Ruby never dropped her personable smile as they descended, but it looked forced and somewhat professional — like a butler of a grand estate.
