Tiger's Eye (17 page)

I was still on my knees when I lifted the phone to my ear.

“H-hello?”

The reception was scratchy, like an untuned radio dial.

“Dead men tell no tales.” Mr. Scoog’s voice.

After that, the same voice from the call the other day. “Your father was murdered.” He repeated it over and over again until I couldn’t stand it any longer.

I screamed, dropped the phone, and danced away from it.

Right out of my circle of protection.

Uh-oh.

They came at me not in a wave, but in pockets. Clusters of people—spirits—grouped together by I don’t know what. Families? Time of death? Hair color?

The first to reach me was a blonde woman in a beaded black flapper dress with so much kohl eyeliner I wondered if she used actual coal. A man wearing a fedora stood next to her looking confused. The woman seemed a little drunk.

“Listen, doll,” she said, rushing at me. “Tell my great-great-granddaughter that I’m proud as all get out!”

The man said, “And how!” Then he looked around and added, “Say, where’s the hooch?”

Oh, this was not happening. “I, I don’t know your great-great-granddaughter.”

The woman waved her arm. “Sure you know her, honey. You live here in town, don’tcha? Everybody knows everybody in this backwater burg. Isn’t that right, Dash?”

Dash had wandered off already, apparently looking for the hooch. Thor was fighting his way through the crowd, trying to get to me. He learned quickly that his impressive frame and go-to intimidation tactics would not work on this bunch.

“Name’s Fontaine, honey, Monique Fontaine!” She sauntered off in search of Dash, her beads clicking together with every sashay of her hips.

Oh no. No. No. This was not in the cards. I did not want to be bound by some ancestral oath to deliver messages all over town to descendants of the deceased.

I backed up into the circle of nettle and bumped into a fluttering, nervous energy. A waif of a man was chewing on his nails and sputtering at me. His black hair fell over his eyes and he had a rope around his neck.

“I didn’t mean to do it. Please tell my mother I didn’t mean to do it. The chair slipped. I was…trying to…you know…” He made an obscene hand gesture and I almost vomited.

Two Civil War soldiers, one Confederate, one Union, were standing right behind him, patiently waiting their turn. The Confederate soldier said, “Sir, you are frightening this woman. Kindly step aside.”

The small man turned on him like a rabid animal and both soldiers drew their swords.

“What battalion are you from?”

The hanged man scattered to the wind.

“Ma’am, we have but one request,” said the Union soldier. He flicked his eyes to the Confederate soldier. “My brother and I would like to know who won the battle.”

My voice was shaky. “I don’t know which battle you are referring to, but I can tell you who won the war.”

Their eyes grew large. Neither could have been over eighteen years old when they died. They looked at each other for a split second and both tightened their grips on their weapons.

“But only if you promise to stop fighting.”

Reluctantly the swords found their way into the sheaths.

“The North.”

The Union soldier jumped up and down and said “Ha!” to his brother.

The Confederate soldier looked defeated. So I said, “I’m pretty sure Grant was hung over when Lee surrendered. He was also covered in mud, his uniform was rumpled, and he hadn’t bathed in a while by all accounts.”

“Undignified swine,” said the teenager in gray. They both marched off.

There was a commotion in the crowd behind me as a fistfight broke out.

“Stop that!” I yelled.

Thor charged toward the hoopla and a man with a goatee held his hands up. “Not again!” he screamed and ran the other away.

The man he was fighting said, “It was a Rottweiler got him last time. Serves him right for breaking into that house in the first place when the kids were home. Hit an empty
pad, that’s what I always say.” Then he lit a cigarette and said, “Listen, I got a job for my cousin—”

A large black woman in a housecoat with a yellow scarf tied in her hair cut him off. “Not in my house, son.” Her voice carried a Southern twang. “God-fearing people go before scumbags.” She had at least a hundred pounds on him. Maybe two.

“You don’t even live here,” the man protested.

She didn’t?
I thought.

She moved forward with the determination of a mother bear, parked her hands on her generous hips, and stared him down.

He shrugged and said, “I got time.” The man leaned against a headstone and puffed on the smoke.

The large woman turned her attention back to me. “Darlin’, I want you to tell my grandnephew to get his butt back to law school. His grandmomma is all up in arms about him quittin’ and she won’t stop prayin’ and yappin’ to me. I got things to do, you know? Just cuz I’m dead don’t mean I aint livin’. Can’t be called to her side every time she needs a favor, but then again, Maybel was always a drama queen. Do you know that one time she—”

“Pardon me, but what is his name?”

The interruption perturbed her, but the energy in the air was growing hostile and I didn’t want another argument to break out. Although I couldn’t believe I asked the question, because I certainly had no intentions of following through with the request.

She smiled and said proudly, “Derek Meyers. Fine-lookin’ boy and smart as a whip! Won the state spellin’ bee back in…”

I stopped listening. Derek had been in law school? Well, this kept getting better and better. Geez, I really hoped there was no penalty for not following through with these deliveries. I mean, what the hell was I supposed to say?
Hey, Derek, you know what the world needs? More lawyers.
I certainly couldn’t tell him the truth. Although he did have an aunt in New Orleans who was a voodoo priestess. Maybe I could just tell him she called to relay this message.

“Got it,” I said.

“Hmm-hmm.” She adjusted her scarf, nodded, and faded into a mist.

That was when I spotted a group of children playing tag a car’s length away. A thin woman with long, straight hair stood in the center of them looking like a wild animal caught in a trap.

Something about her eyes drew me to her.

Thor followed and the kids swarmed the dog, squealing with delight, galloping all around him and high-fiving each other. Of course, the big ham welcomed the attention.

The crowd was multiplying around me, shouting requests, and my nerves began to bubble. I centered my focus on the woman, trying to block the noise, but I could feel a vein pulsating in my forehead.

The stench of burned rubber mixed with something metallic seeped from her.

She didn’t meet my eyes as she spoke. “I heard it, you know. Just before.” Her hands fidgeted with the buttons on her floral blouse. “But there was no time.” Her voice was shallow and a sob escaped her throat as the tears fell.

My heart twisted into knots at the pain she must have felt.

“I don’t know what went wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be there.” She looked at me questioningly. “I stopped. I did, I know I did.” Her eyes were raw with emotion.

I nodded in empathy.

“But the kids”—she trailed her gaze to them, watched as Thor joined in the chase game—“they were singing some stupid song. ‘Old MacDonald,’ I think it was.” She called to one of the little ones, told him not to climb a tree. “It was the first day of school, so I thought, let them have fun. Just be kids.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, shook her head, and said, “It wasn’t supposed to be there.”

“You’re right,” I said. “It wasn’t. It was a new route they were trying.”

Her eyes fell on me and there was a spark of hope behind the moisture. She wrinkled her brow. “Really? Because I stopped, I swear I did. I looked, but I didn’t see it. Do they know that?” She searched my face for an answer. “The parents, I mean. Do they know I stopped?”

“They know. It was an accident. That’s all. Just an accident.”

She nodded, looked down at the well-manicured grass. “So senseless. So much lost and for what?” Her shoulders sagged with the weight of her burden.

“One good thing came from it.”

She looked at me skeptically. “What could that possibly be?”

“After the accident, the town got a grant from the state. The Federal Highway Act of 1973 urged every state to inspect each crossing, but it was a slow process. The accident allowed for the town to be granted the funds to install gates, bells, and flashing lights.”

“Really?” A small smile crept across her face. “Do you think that helped?”

“It saves lives.”

“Oh.” She looked at the children. “That makes me happy.” She turned and suddenly threw her arms around me. “Thank you,” she whispered.

The electricity of her touch jolted through me like lightning. Her entire life and death flashed before my eyes, and when she finally released me, I felt as if I had just taken a shower with a toaster.

I wobbled for a moment as she whisked off toward the kids.

That’s when I heard the words that changed my life forever. “We can touch her?”

Holy Moses and his brother Doug. This was not good.

Arms and voices came at me in all directions and my heart rate jumped into overdrive.

“No, no. Please. One at a time!”

The faces and voices collided into a terrifying wave of desperation. My own desperation was bleeding through as I searched for an escape route.

There was none.

“Thor!” I cried, but I didn’t see or even hear him.

My throat began to close up and I realized I was having a panic attack. I thought I spotted the man from my meditation, but I couldn’t be certain.

“People, calm down, please!”

Just then, I heard a gunshot. I twisted my neck to see a one-armed man fire again.

“Back off! This little lassie needs her space.”

The voice was familiar. But he looked too young. “Mr. Scoog?”

He winked his glass eye at me.

Someone shouted, “He’s a newbie! He hasn’t even gone through registration yet!”

Wow. Even in death, there was paperwork.

Someone disarmed Scoog and the mob turned their sights back to me.

I stretched my arms out to distance them. It was about as effective as herding cats with a laser pointer.

“Can you tell my husband that skank he married is cheating on him?” one woman asked. “The rat bastard.”

A round man said, “Tell my son the family sauce recipe is hidden behind the painting of his uncle. No more of that canned crap!”

“Sure, sure.”

I backed away as they hurled more and more demands. They kept moving forward, reaching, groping, vampiring my life force. My heart was beating so fast, I was sure it would explode.

My last thought, before I tripped over a tree root and took a header into a headstone, was,
How ironic would it be to die in a cemetery?

Chapter 23

“Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There’s so little hope for advancement.”

—Snoopy

The pungent aroma of frankincense awakened me.

There were voices. Questioning voices that made me hesitate to open my eyes.

Please, please don’t let me see dead people.

I heard the cardinal’s song and a familiar woman said, “Hello, Mr. C, nice to see you.” She punctuated her greeting with her own whistle to the bird.

Fiona was here.

But where was here? Slowly I opened my eyes.

The three Geraghty Girls were huddled over me all suited up as if they were hosting a sporting event for sorcerers and I was the crystal ball.

“She’ll be fine now,” Birdie said and stepped back.

I sat up, looked around. I was back on top of my father’s grave, ensconced in a circle of candles, herbs, and
gemstones. Thor had his head in my lap, looking worried. My legs had fallen asleep from the weight of it.

“It’s a good thing your familiar was smart enough to call on us,” Birdie said. Her crimson cape flared around her and she was wearing so much jewelry, her neck wasn’t visible.

“Thanks, Thor.” I kissed his big black nose.

He yawned and hauled himself to his feet. I shook out my legs.

A phone rang and I jumped. It was in Lolly’s hand and I said, “Don’t answer that!”

Too late. Lolly picked it up and said, “Hello? Hello? Who’s this, please?”

She shrugged and said, “This thing is fussy.” Then she handed it to Fiona.

“You were holding it backward, dear,” Fiona said. “Hello? Yes, Stacy is right here.” Fiona reached her hand out, her emerald cape covering all but her rose-colored manicure.

I shook my head, “Take a message.”

I wasn’t falling for that crap again.

Fiona shrugged and said, “Mr. Parker, she isn’t feeling well right now. May I take a message?” She paused. “Well, I’m not sure, I think perhaps she may need the afternoon off.” Another pause. “Yes, of course. Bye-bye.” She clicked the phone off and said, “I guess it was a good thing Lolly turned it back on. He had a question about an article you submitted.”

Thank you, gods.

Lolly leaned in to grab the phone and her yellow cape parted just enough to reveal a Wonder Woman costume complete with red satin boots and golden lasso.