What the Dead Want(26)

As if he could read her mind Hawk said, “Esther didn’t always drink so much.” At that his face fell and his eyes filled with tears.

“I keep thinking maybe there were more signs,” Hope said. “When I was over there, she had so many books she wanted to give me. Like she was just giving stuff away—wanted to get it out of the house—and I should have realized . . .”

Hawk rubbed his eyes. He had clearly been closer to Esther than any of them. “She struggled, you know. Lost a lot of friends in the war. And saw a lot of shit. And then the house . . . Esther was so strong and funny and cool, y’know? You’d forget she had problems, forget she wasn’t some kinda superhero.”

“I guess she didn’t want to live through another anniversary,” Hope said.

“When I was up there tuning the piano she was talking about it,” Hawk said. “I said she could come and stay with us, but she said no, no, she had to shoot it. She’d been shooting it for forty years trying to figure out a way to make it stop. Trying to account for everyone, make sure she had all of their pictures.”

Gretchen felt a chill go up her spine, but she wanted to find a rational reason for everything that had happened earlier that night. “Listen,” she said. “I don’t know what anniversary you’re talking about. The anniversary of the fire? We can’t just take it for granted that the place is haunted. My aunt let the house fall apart and animals got in, and she was a big drinker. There’s anthills and wasp nests and like—who knows what—little deer or squirrels or moose walking around in there or something, all those pictures and tricks of the light can mess with your head if you’re tired or old or drunk or haven’t eaten—but that doesn’t mean there are ghosts. And what does the anniversary of a horrible crime have to do with all of this?” Even as she was talking Gretchen felt the sense of her own panic, as if she were trying to talk herself out of something she already knew was true.

“What about the crowds in the field?” Hawk asked. “The one Hope couldn’t see?”

“Yeah,” Hope said. “There a reason you came running here in a screaming terror a few hours ago, if you don’t believe in ghosts?”

“But you can’t even see them,” Gretchen said. “How can you believe in them?”

“Plenty of things you can’t see that are real,” Hope said. “You can’t see viruses but you can still get sick.”

“But there could be other reasons I saw those things too,” Gretchen said. “I’m trying to consider all the facts. My aunt drank photo chemicals in front of me after showing me pictures of Auschwitz and Vietnam. And I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in twelve hours except a gin fizz and I was starting to hallucinate from hunger and stress.”

“You mean to tell us you didn’t see Celia and Rebecca?” Hope asked.

Gretchen’s body went cold with fear. “Who?” she said, but she knew exactly what Hope was talking about.

“Our relatives,” Hawk said, circling his finger around the whole table to indicate all of them. “Yours and ours. They’re inseparable.”

“And pretty mean,” Hope said.

Gretchen felt her skin crawl, the hair rising on her arms and neck

“You didn’t see them? A little white girl and a little black girl?” Hawk asked. “Wearing dirty summer dresses?”

“They like to trip people with a rope,” his sister said, and again Gretchen was speechless. “Rebecca was our distant cousin; Celia would have been another great-great-somebody of yours, I guess.”

“They’re pretty pissed,” Hawk said. “The others just wander around screaming or in some kind of stupor, not knowing they’re dead or why they got stuck on the land. They can only really do damage on the anniversary. But Celia and Rebecca, they are not having it. They’re out for blood.”

Gretchen remembered the bite. She touched her side.

“Tell her,” Hope said.

“I saw one of them pulling the wings off a bird,” Hawk said, and shuddered. “They’re really strong.”

“Esther was trying to find a way to release all of them,” Hawk said. “She really did want to leave you the house with nobody trapped in it. Sometimes there are whole crowds wandering through the house and the field. Folks who didn’t make it out of the church in time . . .”

“I can’t see them like Hawk,” Hope said. “But everyone in Mayville lives in fear of their damage on the anniversary. Tree branches falling and braining people on a windless day, falls in the tub, suicides, children drowning in the lake. The accidents increase every year.”

“It’s like they’re trying to empty the whole town, a handful of people at a time.”

“Did your parents believe in these ghosts, or see them?”

“Our mom,” Hope said. “Was doing research on the Underground Railroad and on the influence the Klan had over small towns in the north. She didn’t exactly believe in ghosts, but—”

“She didn’t believe in ghosts at all,” Hawk said, interrupting his sister. “Even when they were standing right in front of her.”

“My mother did,” Gretchen said. “Even when there were no ghosts to be found. She was here trying to help Esther with her crazy ideas about the house.”