The Soul Thief (7 page)

He’d have to talk to Darryl about his choice of bicycle later.

Armed with familiar parts, Franklin swaggered back across the yard. “So you think you’re bad?” he sneered.

He realized if any of the neighbors looked outside at this point, they’d think he was crazy.

Then again, most of the people in Katherinesville who were merely acquainted with him and his talking to ghosts already thought he was crazy.

“You’re nothing,” Franklin sneered. “You can’t reach me and you can’t hurt me. And I’m well on my way to
annihilating
you.”

The remains of the thorn bush trembled, but not in fear.

A dare.

Do your worst.

Franklin lashed out with the bicycle chain. It whipped around the top of the bush, then he yanked it away, shredding vegetation as he untangled it.

Then he had to duck. Thorns loosed by the chain flew toward him. One caught him in the shoulder.

“That’s it,” Franklin said. He looped the bicycle chain through the wheel, then whirled it over his head, like some kind of ancient discus. He bashed into the bush again and again, knocking it to one side, then the other. He pushed the bush further back, making it tilt.

As it pulled back, the root ball holding the knife came closer and closer to the surface.

Finally, when the handle of the blade had cleared the hole, Franklin whirled the tire one last time, letting go of one end of the chain at the same time.

The wheel spun as it flew through the air, the tire already badly punctured and the spokes bent. It bashed straight into the bush, making it shiver. Then it hung there, like some kind of modern art, a tire sacrificed for y’all’s sins.

With the bush distracted by the tire, Franklin used the chain to whip the ball root holding the knife, tearing it away from the main roots.

With a daring leap, Franklin snatched the blade from the ball root, then hurriedly leaped out of the way again, before the thorn bush could make another grab for him.

Franklin stood panting in the center of the yard. He bled from half a dozen scratches, his shoulder ached from where the one thorn had imbedded itself, and it felt to him as though the knife still pulsed, evilly, in his hand.

The thorn bush slumped over, defeated. Its branches lay abandoned on the ground, no longer a deadly barrier.

Franklin still didn’t trust it. He left the wheel there, where it was, hanging from the single trunk. It wouldn’t surprise him if the bush grew more branches overnight, just so it could tear the wheel apart.

Somehow, Franklin didn’t think Darryl would be riding his bike again anytime soon.

After collecting up the other tools and putting them on the steps next to the back door, Franklin let himself out the side gate.

He had a long bike ride home that he wasn’t looking forward to. And his own ghosts to deal with once he got there.

He was definitely gonna take a day off next week.

Franklin put the blade in one of the leg pockets of his overalls, buttoning it carefully, making sure that it was secure. It wouldn’t do now for him to just lose the thing.

Though the way the knife
pushed
at him, trying to make its intent clear, he weren’t sure if that wasn’t just the best thing for it. For it to be lost, buried, out of sight.

But he’d started down this path. And he didn’t know of any other way to get rid of his unwelcome guests.

He just hoped Mama would forgive him for what he was about to do.

Ξ

Franklin pushed his bike into his shed, exhausted. It had seemed as though he’d felt every single bump in the road coming home. He’d known that the thorns on that damned bush had probably been tainted with something—he just hoped it weren’t poisonous.

Sweet Bess glared at Franklin from the corner of the house, but he couldn’t pay her no mind. He had to get inside. Get some rest.

He pulled out his phone and flipped it open. It was gonna take him forever to send Karl a text message, pressing each key carefully until it reached the right letter.

But he didn’t see how he’d get himself up again in only four—no, three and a half hours, by now. Plus, though the ghosts were quieter, he could still hear ’em moaning something fierce out back.

Franklin slowly climbed the two steps up to the porch, still pressing buttons on his phone. “Dang it,” he said when he realized he would have to redo the last word. It had all come out garbled.

He unlocked his door and stepped inside, still focused on his phone, grateful for the light.

Wait.

Light?

Franklin looked up.

Someone had dragged his kitchen table out from the corner where it usually sat and placed it in the center of the kitchen floor. An odd, yellowish glow came from the center of it, like a sickly mist.

A white man dressed in blue surgical scrubs stood behind the table. He wore a doctor’s mask across his face, and a blue cap over his head. He waved his hands across the table, in and out of the yellow glow, as if he were one of those fancy orchestra conductors.

“What are you doing?” Franklin asked, confused. That weren’t no ghost standing there, or some kind of creature from Franklin’s exhausted imagination.

“Waiting for you, Franklin,” the man said. His voice was smooth and educated. He took a loud breath. “Now, watch.”

The man continued his conducting, moving his hands out toward the edges of the table then scooping them together, like he was raising armfuls of leaves. The glow spread out, growing long across the top of the table.

More mist rose up, darker mist. It started collecting itself into a shape.

A human shape.

“What are you doing?” Franklin asked, horrified. He tried moving forward to stop the man, but he found himself moving sluggishly slow, as if the mist had wrapped around his ankles and had tied him there.

Franklin reached down to see if he could free himself.

He still had his phone in his hand.

The mist was freezing his bones. It was hard to think, hard to move.

Franklin typed out “9-1-1” and hit send.

Would Karl get the text in time? Would he understand that Franklin needed help?

Franklin pulled himself back up straight slowly. At least the man behind the table hadn’t seemed to notice Franklin’s call. He was focused on the mist, pushing it together, making it more solid. Sweat dropped freely from his forehead.

Whatever the hell he was doing, it was taking an awful lot out of him.

Finally, he seemed satisfied with his work. He lifted his hands up above his head and called out in some foreign language.

It weren’t a friendly language. The man gargled and hissed, the words wrapped around his tongue like thorns.

Franklin shivered. It was like the doctor was invoking an evil spirit to come down and witness his work.

Something unholy.

The form on the table solidified more, changing shape, growing breasts and hips and a recognizable face.

Mama.

Franklin had heard the phrase before about “a body at rest.” And that’s what Mama looked like—a body at complete rest. She was at peace.

Then her eyes opened.

Franklin had to smile when that familiar glare was immediately directed at him. Then it fixed on the stranger.

But then Mama’s eyes started changing. Hollowing out. Growing dark and black and empty.

“Stop!” Franklin said.

The man was bringing back Mama’s ghost, like he’d brought back the others. The ones who was still howling in Franklin’s backyard.

But it wouldn’t be Mama. Not really. It would look like her, but Franklin could already see the life being drained out of her.

Not that a ghost had that much life to start with. All her will was being taken away, just leaving her with the anger of being ripped out of Heaven.

“You don’t want to see your mother?” the man asked, his voice dripping with false concern. “What kind of a son are you?”

“Don’t you mess with my mama,” Franklin warned. “You put her back.” How dare he? It just weren’t right, messing with the dead like he was doing.

It was why the ghosts who’d returned to haunt Franklin had seemed unnatural. The man had brought them back against their will, against nature.

The man seemed to consider for a moment before nodding and saying, “All right. I’ll stop the process, scoot her back beyond. But I’m going to need something for my efforts.”

That right there stopped Franklin cold. “What?” he asked, though he had an idea.

“That blade you carry so thoughtlessly in your pocket,” the man said.

Greed filled the man’s beady eyes.

Franklin did
not
want to give this man the knife. It was a dangerous thing. Not evil, but not good.

What would this man…this
magician
…do with such a powerful tool?

“Make up your mind,” the man warned. “I can only hold her like this for so long. Then she slips into awareness, comes back to this plane.”

Mama didn’t have enough of herself to throw an effective glare at the man.

But Franklin didn’t have to hear her actually howl to know what she would sound like, how awful it would be. It would tear him to pieces. While he might miss her something fierce, it wouldn’t be the same.

Mama might not be happy with Franklin for handing over the blade to this man, but she’d
never
forgive him for allowing her to be brought back, her will not her own.

Franklin slowly unzipped the pocket on his thigh where the blade had been resting, heavy and cold. It didn’t seem repelled by the man, though Franklin was equally sure the blade kinda liked where it was, being held by Franklin.

Could Franklin just throw it at the man? Would it cut him? Or would it just go gliding into his hand, as if it were made to be there?

What the hell was this blade? What kind of spirits made up its essence? Why was it giving Franklin all these thoughts and feelings?

The doctor seemed to know—he knew all kinds of things about the knife, Franklin would bet. Probably had been studying it for some time.

The man gestured for Franklin to come closer. Franklin didn’t want to go. Damn it, he
hated
being bullied.

But Mama didn’t have a lot of time, or she’d be
stuck
here, howling like the other spirits.

Franklin took two shuffling steps forward. Again, he hesitated. He couldn’t run—the mists held him too tightly for him to do much than just shuffle along. Turning the blade on himself didn’t make no sense either: he’d just end up dying and the doctor would take the knife anyway.

With a suffering sigh, Franklin raised his arm and reached over the table where Mama still lay, her glare losing more power as her will dribbled away, handing this dangerous, far too
aware
blade over to a madman.

“You did the right thing, son,” the man said solemnly. “You’ll see. Everyone in the whole world will see. You’ll be sung of as a hero. Just as the knife will be praised for playing its part.”

Was this guy drunk or something? What was he talking about?

“The world will be a much better place. You mark my words,” the doctor said, running his fingers carefully along the blade of the knife, turning it to see all three prongs.

Mama started fading immediately, her eyes losing their haunted stare and going back to normal. She shook her head at Franklin, disapproving of what he’d just done.

Franklin hoped she’d understand some as well.

“Goodbye, Mama,” Franklin said softly.

When Franklin looked back up, the man was already on his side of the table. He smelled of sour sweat and burnt sage, like what Lexine had used when calming her spirits.

“You’ve got your phone with you?” the man inquired.

Franklin told the man, “No,” though he still had it in his other hand.

“I can see it right there,” the man said. “Good.”

He moved faster than Franklin had anticipated, as fast as the vines he’d fought earlier.

Just as suddenly, the knife was in Franklin’s side. The blade seared cold into Franklin’s body. He stumbled against the table, the pain in his side making the room waver.

“Why’d you do that for?” Franklin asked.

“Call 911,” the man instructed. “They have a response time of nine-point-two minutes in this county.”

Franklin reached for his phone but he couldn’t get his fingers to work.

“It’s okay if you do die,” the man told him just before he walked out the door. “I’ll just use your soul too.”

Hell
if Franklin was going to let that happen.

He kept trying to press buttons when suddenly the phone in his hand rang.

Did he do that?

He managed to press the “On” button.

“Hello?” he said. He was impressed by how normal his voice sounded.

“What the hell is going on out there?” Karl yelled.

“I been stabbed,” Franklin said. He was losing his grip on the table.

That was okay. It was much better down on the ground.

Oh. Or even more better outside.

“Franklin—Franklin!”

Karl’s voice sounded tinny and far away.

“I’m here. Going outside,” Franklin added.

If he were gonna die, it was gonna be in his cornfields.

Hopefully they’d find his hat and bury him in that too. As well as his good Sunday suit. And maybe the green shirt that both Julie and his cousin May liked.

“You ain’t dying. Not until I come and personally kick your ass,” Karl said. “I’ve already called 911. They should be on their way.”

“In nine-point-two minutes,” Franklin said.

The door was already open. Franklin pulled himself outside.

He felt as if he could breathe, finally, though the pain in his side made it hard. He rolled over onto his back, his head on the edge of the porch, just so he could see the stars.

Franklin weren’t afraid to die. He’d done his best. Even Mama would say that he deserved his peace.

Was that sirens in the distance? Or just the cycling of the cicadas?

Franklin took as deep a breath as he could and closed his eyes.

If only he could have seen Julie one more time.

Five

FRANKLIN FELT AS though sand glued his eyes shut. He scrunched them tighter, before finally prying them open.