Dream Lake (Friday Harbor #3)(38)



“Can you say that again?” Sam asked. “Because I might want to write it down and use it as part of my speech.”

The ghost, who was in the corner of the room, sat with his head resting on his bent knees.

Finishing the wiring for the second sconce, Sam attached it to the brick, tightened the anchor sleeves, and stood back to view his handiwork. “Thanks, Al. You want some lunch? I’ve got some sandwich stuff in the fridge.”

Alex shook his head. “I’m going up to the attic, doing a little more clearing out.”

“Oh, that reminds me … Holly loves that old typewriter you found. I gave it a couple of shots of WD-40 and re-inked the ribbon with a stamp pad. She’s been having a blast with it.”

“Great,” Alex said indifferently.

“Yeah, but here’s the interesting thing. Holly noticed the liner of the tweed case was loose, and there was a little corner of something sticking out. So she pulls it out, and it’s a weird piece of cloth with a flag and some Chinese characters on it. And there’s a letter, too.”

The ghost lifted his head.

“Where is it?” Alex asked. “Can I take a look?”

Sam nodded toward the sofa. “It’s in the side table drawer.”

While Sam put away the tools and vacuumed the remaining dust, Alex went to the table. The ghost was at his side instantly. “Personal space,” Alex warned under his breath, but the ghost didn’t budge.

A feeling of apprehension crawled down the back of Alex’s neck as he opened the drawer and picked up a piece of thin silky fabric, yellowed with age, about eight by ten inches. It was stained in places, the corners dark. A Chinese Nationalist flag dominated the top. Six columns of Chinese characters had been printed under the flag.

“What is it?” Alex wondered aloud, his voice drowned out by the vacuum.

Even so, the ghost heard him, and his reply was soft but audible. “It’s a blood chit.” The term was unfamiliar to Alex. Before he could ask what it meant, the ghost added quietly, “It’s mine.”

The ghost was remembering something, emotions emanating like smoke, and Alex couldn’t help but catch the edge of them.

The world was smoke and fire and panic. He was falling faster than gravity, ricocheting through blue and cirrus-white, the metal skin of his aircraft twisting like a licorice whip as the forces of heaven and hell wrenched at it. His knees pulled up and his elbows cinched into a fetal position, the last thing every fighter pilot did before dying. It wasn’t training, it was the body’s primal recognition that it was about to go through more pain and damage than it could endure.

His heart beat out the syllables of a woman’s name, over and over.

Alex shook his head to clear it, and looked at the ghost.

“What do you make of it?” he heard Sam ask.

The ghost stared at the silk in Alex’s hand. “They gave them to American flyers to carry on missions over China,” he said. “In case the plane went down. The writing says, ‘This foreigner has come to help in the war effort. Soldiers and civilians should rescue, protect, and provide him with medical care.’ We kept them in our jackets—some people sewed ’em in.”

In a monotone, Alex heard himself explaining the blood chit to Sam.

“Interesting,” Sam said. “I wonder whose it was. I’d like to find out who owned that typewriter, but there’s no name in the case.”

Alex began to reach for the letter. He hesitated as if he were about to put his hand into an open flame. He didn’t want to read what was on that piece of paper. He had a feeling it had never been meant to be seen.

“Do it,” the ghost whispered, his face grim.

The paper was stationery-sized and brittle. It wasn’t signed. It was addressed to no one.

I hate you for all the years I’ll have to live without you. How can a heart hurt this much and still go on beating? How can I feel this bad without dying from it?

I’ve bruised my knees with praying to have you back. None of my prayers have been answered. I tried to send them up to heaven but they’re trapped here on earth, like bobwhites beneath the snow. I try to sleep and it’s like I’m suffocating.

Where have you gone?

Once you said that if I wasn’t with you, it wouldn’t be heaven.

I can’t let go of you. Come back and haunt me. Come back.

Alex couldn’t bring himself to look at the ghost. It was bad enough to stand at the outer edge of what the ghost felt, trapped in the nimbus of a grief that felt worse than anything he’d ever experienced. It was like being injected with a slow-acting poison.

“I think a woman wrote it,” he heard Sam say. “It sounds like a woman, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Alex replied with difficulty.

“But why was it typed? You’d expect something like that to be handwritten. I wonder how the guy died.”

More sadness, coming in aching waves from the ghost. Alex had to clench his fist to keep from striking out at him, even though it would have been like flailing at mist. Anything to make it stop.

“Cut it out,” Alex muttered, his throat tight.

“I can’t,” the ghost said.

“Cut what out?” Sam asked.

“Sorry,” Alex said. “I’ve gotten into a habit of talking to myself. I meant to ask, can I take this with me?”

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