Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story (75 page)

“No, Emily. She’s already dead. The worst it did was ‘neutralize her psychic make up,’ I suppose. Or truly piss her off.”

“But you don’t think it’s the last we’ll see of her, do you?”

“It matters not, Mrs. Chamberlain.” He stared at her until her frown disappeared. “The curse is broken.”

He wrapped his arm around her, his heart pounding steady in his chest. They held their embrace until he kissed her tenderly, staring down at her. The sight of her, with hay in her hair and sunlight in her eyes, caused a strange clenching in his chest and made his throat swell.

“How do you do this to me?”

“Me?”

His finger brushed along her bottom lip. “Yes, you,” he said softly, trying to keep his voice from breaking, wondering how he had become so affected by all this. “Now where’s that poem?”

He had it memorized, of course, so instead of reading the paper, he proceeded to place kisses from her neck to her collarbone as he spoke the words:

“I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.
O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.
I dwell with a strangely aching heart.”

“It sounds so much better when you say it,” she told him.

“I know.”

She jostled him off of her, leaving them side by side again. “I think Nick’s remains are in the house. I couldn’t find anything before when I was looking. Nothing to open that needed a key. Not the mausoleum, not a grave, nothing. But…do you think she simply left his body in the house to rot? That’s just too awful.”

“Not his body, but his ashes, perhaps. That woman had no love for her son. She probably didn’t want him buried properly, but she couldn’t cast him aside, either. I mean, he was her child—once. No, I think you’re right. Nick is in there somewhere.”

“Yo! Where the hell are you two?” Christian’s voice boomed up from the barn floor.

Emily and Andrew hung their heads over the edge of the hayloft and smiled. Below stood Simon, Margot, Christian, and Zoey, gaping up at them with incredulous looks on their faces.

Simon, however, stood back near the barn door. He reached for his cigarettes and remarked sourly, “Is it just me, or do you two have a thing about doing it around dead people?”

Emily turned her reddened face into Andrew’s shoulder.

“I hope to God you’re dressed, because I’m starving and this taskmaster wouldn’t let me touch a bite until we were all back together,” announced Margot with a nod toward Zoey, whose arms were filled with a tray of steaming to-go cups.

Andrew bounded down the ladder and jumped the last four rungs.

“Tell me there’s tea in there somewhere.”

Zoey grinned and handed him a large cup that perfumed the air with bergamot.

“If I didn’t tell you before, I adore you.” He grabbed her, smiling from ear to ear, and spun her around in a hug, nearly upending her tray.

“I know. I have that effect on people.” She burst into a round of chuckles.

Simon, however, was not amused, and as the girls disappeared into the loft and dragged Emily over to the corner, he set his sights on Andrew and then the loft, repeating the movement several times before he asked slowly, “No pitchforks, I take it.”

“None that I could find, but the hay is a royal bitch. Sweet Jesus, is that a bagel?”

Simon stared at him as he inhaled it. “So I see you haven’t come to your senses.”

Andrew shot him a look before he took a long swig of his tea.

“Out with it.”

“It’s your nightmare, not mine. But if this is what you want, I’m not keen on sticking around to see the end of it. She’s bad news, Andrew. This whole thing is bad news.”

“So what are you saying? It’s her or you? Simon, seriously?”

The stern look on Simon’s face spoke volumes. He lit a cigarette and said no more.

“Listen, man,” Christian interrupted. “I’m all into blasting skanky ghosts with big ray guns, but I need one fucking day of fucking rest, okay? Do you think that’s possible?”

“I’ll look into it,” Andrew replied curtly, still stung by Simon’s remarks.

The rift between the two men seemed palpable, even as they all left the barn and wandered out into the sunshine to set up their breakfast picnic. Just as they were about to sit down, Andrew stopped short. His gaze drifted to the bottom of the hill. Neil and Claudia stood there, her arms waving in greeting, his at his sides. He had never been so glad to see both of them and before he knew what he was doing, he was trotting down the hill; he grabbed his mum in a hug until she pulled back, her eyes shiny with tears.

“Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“No, Mum.”

“We were worried,” Neil said, trying to keep his voice light, but failing. “Ever since Simon’s call—after we found out about everything with Vandin—we couldn’t stay back in San Francisco. So I phoned Simon this morning, and when he told us about that séance, well, here we are.”

Andrew could not help but notice the way Neil said
we
, an edge of possessiveness to his voice. He readied himself for the reaction he knew would come but felt only relief. With one hand he shook Neil’s and clapped his other one on his shoulder.

“Thank you. I’m glad you’re here. It’s been a horrendous few days, believe me. Come, come join us.” He motioned to their picnic.

Emily and he spent the rest of breakfast filling everyone in on the details. Claudia and Neil seemed the most shocked, but Andrew realized how far they had come when Emily could discuss The Lady in White like she was an eccentric relative and no one seemed the least bit bothered.

“But I don’t understand,” said Zoey. “Why do you think the curse is broken?”

Emily looked down at her empty cup, her face blushing fiercely. Andrew stared out over at the farmhouse and sipped his tea. “It’s broken. Trust me.”

Margot sniggered knowingly as she eyed the rings on each of their hands and the hay all over their clothes. She leaned over to Zoey and murmured a few words, then turned to Andrew and spoke so quietly that only he could hear. “My, my, my, so you improvised. Nicely done.”

“Pleasure was all mine,” he murmured back, his cup inches from his lips when he noticed Simon had lit another cigarette and was beginning to tread toward the house.

“So, what about finding us a dead body?” announced Christian.

Andrew’s pulled his fixed gaze from Simon’s retreating form and back to the crowd. “We think Nick’s remains might be located in the house somewhere. Emily’s been throughout the graveyard and hasn’t discovered anything that contains a lock for this type of key.” He held it up and passed it around so everyone would know what to look for. “I think we should make one more pass about just to be sure, and then we should all split up. Zoey and Christian, would you take the hill behind the barn? Margot, could you go after Simon and see if he’ll join you Emily and me in the house? If he’s willing. And Mum and Dad, would you—”

His mouth froze. What had he just said? His eyes flashed to Claudia and Neil, who had the good grace not to show the shock he was feeling, although a tremor of a smile hung at the edge of his mother’s lips. But this was asinine. He’d had a father his whole life, and for the majority of those years, they loved each other. But now…? Was it wrong to bestow a similar title on another man, a man he barely knew? But no matter how he tried to reconcile the conflicting emotions, the word felt right somehow. Dad…not father. Dad.

The silence was getting uncomfortable when Emily finally spoke. “Yes, would you both mind—I didn’t get a chance to search that field behind the house. I’m not sure if there are any graves there, but the farm is so old it’s definitely worth a shot.”

With no more discussion on the subject, everyone fell in and began their search. Andrew and Emily reached the graveyard. Plots from as far back as the early nineteen hundreds jutted from the ground. Names like Garrett and Mercy, Zachariah and Savannah, all Beldens, were chiseled into the headstones. One stood aside, guarded over by a weathered angel.

Virginia, beloved Wife and Mother

July 23, 1860 - May 18, 1883

She was twenty-three when she died. Only two years older than Emily. Andrew felt a warm hand take his as he gazed down at the marker.

“The sky is blue and the day is stellar and I love you,” she whispered and squeezed his hand, leading him away from the plot. “And you know I’d haunt you if anything ever happened to me. You really don’t want that, do you?” She patted the satchel draped across her chest in which Nora’s ashes lay. She kissed the inside of his wrist tenderly. “Come on.”

They met up with Margot and a clearly unenthusiastic Simon, who were waiting for them in front of the old farmhouse. Unfortunately, it didn’t look any less menacing in the daylight, shrouded in three stories of decay and neglect.

“You think it’s safe to go inside? It’s barely standing,” Margot asked as they approached.

“Stay together. If anything gives way, someone will be able to help you.”

“So do you suppose this was Nick’s mother’s home?” Emily asked, her coat catching on a patch of blackberry bramble that had grown up near the front porch.

“Probably. I reckon her maiden name was Belden—it could be a family home. Perhaps he didn’t want it. Chances are he didn’t pass the most ideal childhood here,” Andrew replied.

None of them had appreciated the desolation of the house until they began to navigate the remains of the front porch, which was pockmarked with rot. The structure seemed to suck the clean air from the surrounding trees into its belly to feed the spirits that moved within it. And as the wind blew again, it felt fetid and cold and unshakably dreary, and bore a sound like hissed whispers. The windows glowered at them as they stepped over the threshold.

The inside of the house was devoid of any sign of charm; no whitewashed wall or surviving hearth greeted them. The interior had fallen victim to the wind and rain as nature had begun its inexorable reclaiming of the land on which it stood. Vines and bramble smothered every surface. The few rooms still standing were a cacophony of peeling paint, cracked plaster, and water stained floors. They searched each one, every cabinet and shelf, but vandals must have stolen anything that couldn’t be nailed down.

Andrew said nothing, prey to what he knew he would feel. He could sense the next turn, the odd step. As though grappling his way through a memory, he found a room that at one time must have served as a kitchen. From there he could hear Margot and Simon on the top floor, their careful footsteps squeaking on the boards above his head.

“You know, I’m not sure, but I think I may have heard her last night,” Emily said while opening up what remained of a cupboard.

“Who?”

“You know who. I couldn’t tell. It was dark and I was, well, I wasn’t thinking straight. But I heard something dragging across the floor when I was in the ground, but I couldn’t see anything, I could barely breathe, and when I tried to get out, I couldn’t budge the door sealing me in. I thought I was going to be buried alive.”

His hand clenched the rotting doorframe. The image of her trapped in that grave while the ghoul stalked the ground above made him punch the wall in frustration. Without warning it crumbled to the ground, and a stream of light poured through the slats between the remaining studs. “Wait, there’s something behind here.”

He wrenched the rotting wood back, and it fell to pieces in his hands. Emily was at his side in an instant and went at another, but cringed as wet wood slid under her nails, beetles swarming free from inside. He quickly took the scraps out of her hands and cast them aside, then ripped off the rest.

Below them lay the top of a dark flight of stairs. The steps and risers were busted and warped, all of them highly unstable. The sunshine filtering through the gaps in the kitchen floor barely illuminated the space below. But there was a cellar down there. How far it spread, he had no idea; it was too dark to tell.

“Excellent. We’ll need rope to get down there,” he told her.

“There’s some back at the barn. I’ll get it.”

Margot and Simon had rejoined them as Emily returned with a length of hard coiled rope. Simon appeared dubious about the opportunity of rappelling down into the black hole, Margot even more so. Andrew tied the rope off at the top of the steps and they gingerly lowered themselves one after the other down into the cellar. Andrew was the first to go.

“Floor’s dry at least,” he shouted back up to them once he had reached the bottom. “Hell, it’s pitch black down here.”

Simon and Margot were next, followed by Emily.

“You don’t suppose there are bats down here?” Emily asked him in a quavering voice as he hoisted her down into the hole.