Page 3 of The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove
“Go us.” My arms gave out, and I slid to the snowy drive. Crows cawed behind us, either just waking up or laughing at the dumb bipedal human lying in the snow. Probably the latter. Many religions, such as Hindu and Native American, believe that crows and ravens are associated with death. Some beliefs cite that they act as guides for the undead or are the spirits of tribal chiefs. I’d not been able to communicate with a corvid, but there was something extra about the birds that made me respectthem more than your average robin. Also, there was that kickass movie with Brandon Lee—rest in peace—that featured just such an otherworldly relationship between ravens, crows, and death.
“Do you want to go home? I can finish this run alone.” I shook my head and got a worried frown. “Arch, baby, I’m going to feel terrible if you’re too sore to enjoy Christmas. Why don’t we just go home and—”
“No, nope, I’m good. Strong as a horse.” Ugh, no, no horse references. “Just need to catch my breath.” He looked dubious but reached down to hoist me to my feet. With a hand on my elbow like I was Grandpa, he waited for me to either start running or pass out. I wasn’t sure which it was going to be if I was being honest. “Why don’t you just run on and I’ll do a modified version of the five miles by jogging at a leisurely pace through the cemetery?”
“But the spirits here always make you feel overwhelmed,” he said, bright sapphire eyes darting to the tombstones with caps of white fluff. “I can just run later when we get back from delivering meals.”
“No, it’ll be dark then.”
“It’s still pretty dark now.”
Damn. He was far too clever for me. “Oh right, well.” I wiped at my brow with my mittens, then used my thumb to try to clear my glasses. That was a wrong move. The yarn only smeared the melted snow and sweat across the lenses. “No, I want you to complete your run. You need to stay in top shape for the quarterfinal game on New Year’s Day.”
“Yeah well…” He seemed unsure. I gave him a feeble smile and rose to my toes to kiss his cold lips.
“Go. I’ll recover right here, then do my remaining four and a half miles here too. When you come back, we’ll run home. How does that sound?”
His gaze darted to the graveyard yet again. The cawing crows were growing louder. “If they start to get pushy, send me a text and go home. I don’t want you physically drained again.” I started to argue but then shut my mouth. I vividly recalled the aftermath of allowing a small ghostly child to possess me. I’d been weak as a kitten for weeks after that night at the lake. Everyone had been worried sick, including me, but I’d bounced back. “Promise me.”
“I promise. Now go. Get those muscles burning. I’ll visit a few of the kinder spirits, then meet you here.” I gave his backside a pat as one would a horse. No. No horses. God, I needed to learn how to cleanse unwanted spectral memories from my brain. He nodded, uncertainty tightening his jaw, but took off, glancing back over his wide shoulder until he crested a knoll that led down around the outskirts of Liverswell. I blew out a breath, took a few—like ten—minutes to stop panting like an overworked plow mule, and slowly entered the cemetery. At a walk. I’d make a few laps through the place at a pace that my grandfather could handle and then sit by the front gate and read. I had my phone. Sure, it was cold, but I was overheated and had a good coat. I’d be fine. Freezing to death had to be better than running to death. My calves were so tight now I was tottering along the narrow plowed roads like Mrs. Minkus, the old lunch lady at Liverswell Elementary School. She refused to retire and was still there slapping mashed potatoes onto a tray at the age of ninety-four. Fake foot from an unfortunate incident with a rogue lawn dart back in the ’70s had not slowed her down.
“Whoever thought giant darts that people threw at each other was a good idea for summertime yard fun?” I asked the wind as it blew through the churchyard. A deep bass woof floated toward me on the winter breeze. I smiled and paused, waiting by the grave of Tiberius Tuttle, who went to meet his maker in the year of our Lord 1804. Tiberius generally was one of the lesscranky specters who enjoyed poetry and ladies’ ankles. He wrote sonnets about dainty ankles in thick woolen stockings. I saw Sir Thomas come leaping at me, ghostly tiny paws leaving no tracks as he jumped from stone to stone, knocking snow onto the ground. Around a towering angel that looked over the children of Margaret and Oliver Klinger came the churchyard grim. A massive brute of a dog, a mastiff mix of some kind, if I had to guess, padding after the cat with heavy jowls bouncing.
“Thistle, here, boy!” I called and slapped my weary thighs. The black dog loped to me, tongue lolling, and I got a happy face washing. An odd sensation to say the least, but not nearly as upsetting as when I physically interacted with Reggie or any other ghostly form. The dog had dog memories, most happy, a few sad, but they were simple flashes of a life well lived with children to play with and chickens to chase. Grims were rare to be sure, and most researchers tended to say it was folklore, but most researchers didn’t have my gifts. “You’re looking just as handsome as ever.”
Thistle gave me a merry woof. The grim and the familiar circled me. Sir Thomas was able to travel about the town. Perhaps feline spirits were just as tricky to keep inside in death as they were in life. Thistle, on the other hand, was bound to this old churchyard to protect it from vandals. I pushed away from Master Tuttle’s stone and began following the cat and dog. They stayed on the winding road for the most part. The cat would dart off on occasion but generally paraded in front of me as cats do with its tail in the air. The dog ambled about, sniffing at this stone or withered flower pot, his tail wagging back and forth. It was actually quite peaceful here this morning. A few spirits moved about, some I knew and a few that seemed to wish to keep their distance.
When we made the sharp left to enter the oldest part of the cemetery, where the old church had once stood, we ran intoTiberius and a slim, womanly ghost in a bonnet and a day gown. The portly poet spied me and took the shy lady by the hand to lead her to me. She rushed to snap open a fan to shield her face.
“Good and merry day, Master Kee!” Tiberius shouted as he neared. His lady friend seemed reluctant to come closer at first, but that soon changed as she approached. Most of the dead were not used to the living seeing them, so Tiberius speaking to me and my reply of “Merry Christmas” must have taken her aback. “I’m so happy to see you here. I have long wished to introduce you to Miss Petunia Humphrey. I’ve penned many poems about her beauty and wit!”
The cat and dog started nosing around a mausoleum where several members of the Calicut family had been entombed after they all died from the Spanish Flu in 1918. I could feel curious looks as the undead began to sift out of their graves. My powers were like a beacon to them, Grandpa had explained many years ago. The dead all have things to say, wishes ungranted, secrets to share. When they find a gifted person, they can, at times, mob the psychic to try to speak to them. I’d have to keep my senses open as well as my eyes.
“Miss Humphrey, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said as genteelly as possible. She hid behind her shredded fan, her dark eyes the only part of her ghostly visage to look upon.
“She’s a tender rose, terribly shy about her deformity. I assured her that you had seen much worse, but you know how women are,” Tiberius said as he clung to the timid miss as if he feared she would run off. Which she could easily do. Just a matter of disapparating, and there she went. “I see you’re here with your faithful animal companions. Where is your beau? Did he not come inside with you this time? I thought for sure after that last encounter with Horace Gilbert he’d not leave you alone with the saltier souls in this boneyard.”
Oh yeah, Horace. He’d been more than a little salty, as Tiberius had put it, when we’d last come here. Seemed Horace had died and left his wife in limbo with no funds or knowledge of where they had gone. When I’d agreed to speak to Horace for his wife, Gina, I found out that Horace was not happy to be called up from his eternal rest but he was also a foul-mouthed entity that hurled vile racist and gay slurs at me until I left the graveyard with Phil at my side with nothing but a sickening headache and a belly filled with hatred. For me, his wife, and even poor Thistle. Shame the grim couldn’t take a bite out of Horace’s saggy ass.
“I’m rather sure Horace won’t come out looking to interact with me,” I said but shot a look over at the newer part of the cemetery. “Phil is running to keep in shape for an upcoming game.”
“Ah yes, the manly sport of football. How gay!” Tiberius crowed, patting Miss Petunia’s gloved hand. I did catch a peek at her wrist where the glove and the cuff of her gown failed to meet. There was no meat on her wrist, just bare bone. Crap. My sight flew from her hand to her eyes. She lowered them demurely, then floated free of Tiberius. He turned to watch her move off. “Oh dear, she is a skittish one.” He sighed and rested his hands on his belly. “Between you and me, I find that her face being chewed off by a bear is a small price to pay in comparison to her silent approval of my poetry. Mother always told me to find a meek woman who spoke when spoken to, and I seem to have finally done so. Damn pity it was in the afterlife!”
“Right,” I mumbled as I began to slowly peel away. “Speaking of my guy, I guess I had better head back to the gate to find him.”
“Oh yes, I don’t wish to hold you up. I did have a new sonnet about the shape of my sweet love’s toes, but that can wait for another day! I hope you arrive home safely. Rumor has it that the Tewberry twins have been hiding in their attic for the better part of ten days now. Have you heard or spoken to them?”
I stared at the ghost with the large belly and equally big nose. “No, I haven’t.”
“Hmm, well, that’s beyond odd. Normally, they’re quite rambunctious this time of year. Upset over the lack of gifts on Christmas and all of that. Perhaps they’re just biding their time until the humans that they live with go on holiday to Bridgeport to visit their family over the New Year. Oh, I see Miss Rhonda Mills and her sister Betty Anne are heading our way.”
With that announcement, Tiberius tipped his head at the young women nearing me and left to return to his lady love. With a groan, I turned to greet the sisters in the matching yellow polka dot bikinis. Both were missing one yellow sandal. They had matching Jackie Kennedy bouffant bobs, long legs, and were already talking to me. Outwardly, they appeared fine aside from the vascular marbling. How they had drowned was a mystery as neither sister would speak about it, but there had been mention of a strange man seen near the lake that day. Did he kill them, or did they get into a squabble and drown each other? Their misadventure at Lake Killikee in 1964 was just one of many spooky tales in this part of the country.
Given how pushy they could be, the fact that they had kept the cause of their deaths a secret for so long was truly impressive. These were the spirits that liked to latch onto a seer like a leech. I began moving away from them as I smiled my most polite smile. They were speaking over each other now, high-pitched New Englander drawls, the tone of which was already giving me a headache. The two of them weren’t exactly malevolent, but they were suspiciously close to it, and that made me edgy.
“Archie, we simply must speak to our boyfriends,” they droned nearly in unison as I began moving in reverse, taking care not to back into low stones as I stumbled cautiously to the roadway.
“They’re not alive anymore,” I told them for at least the tenth time. I had done the work to try to find their steady guys lastmonth. With Monique’s help, we discovered both had passed away within the past ten years. “I’m really sorry, but I think you both need to resign yourselves to that fact. Now I have to go.”
