Chapel of Ease (31 page)

He was less than ten feet away now, and his masters drew close as well, although with far less speed and grace. Apparently they trusted the dog to do most of the dirty work of catching me. Which, of course, he had.

And now he was about to finish the job.

Then, for no obvious reason, he took a step backwards and growled in a completely new way. Suddenly he was
frightened.

Something moved in the corner of my eye. Had the Durants flanked me, or had I just run straight into their clutches? I turned.

A man emerged from the forest and stood beside the same tree I cowered against.

Although I couldn't see his face, his body shape told me it wasn't C.C., or his friend Doyle. All the Durants I'd seen had been larger as well. He was shorter, and slighter, than any of them. He had an unruly shock of dark hair silhouetted by the moonlight, and wore overalls. He carried no weapon, yet the dog continued to back away, his growl now becoming a low, keening whine.

I glanced from the dog to the man, not sure what exactly was happening. Why did this guy frighten the dog so much?

And then I saw the obvious. I mean that literally: faintly but distinctly, I saw the moonlit trees
through
the man's form. He was a ghost.

A
haint.

But this wasn't Ray; that was certain. Everything was different.

He turned to me, and at last I saw his face. He was young, barely out of his teens, and his clean-shaven face was sad and forlorn. He looked right at me, right
into
me, and with a fresh jolt of recognition I realized who he had to be.

Not Shad.

The nameless ghost.

I still clutched my stick, although it was as useless against a ghost as it was the Hound of the Durants.

He made no effort to speak, just continued to look at me sadly, as if I'd somehow done something awful that he'd known I was going to do, but hoped I wouldn't. Or perhaps I was projecting. Then he raised his arm and pointed.

I looked the way he indicated, and saw only more forest. Then I realized he was pointing at the way I'd just come, back toward the chapel of ease. I shook my head.

He pointed again, more vehemently. Then he grabbed my upper arm.

I felt him, just as I'd felt Ray's presence under my feet on the porch. His fingers were thin, small, and no stronger than a man's, certainly no spectral death grip. Was this really a ghost? I was about to pull away when I heard the dog yelp in pain.

Billy Durant, carrying a flashlight and shotgun, stood over the cowering dog and drew back for another kick. “You god-danged fucking waste of fucking dog skin!” he said. The dog cried out again and huddled as close to the ground as he could, eyes looking up pitifully.

“Don't kick the damn dog, Billy,” Winslow said as he appeared, carrying a large rifle with a huge night-vision scope.

“I'd cut his damn balls off, if he still had any,” Billy snarled.

Now I was puzzled. I was, at most, ten feet away from them. I wasn't in shadow, and I wasn't hiding. How could they not see me? I stayed very still, and the ghost at my elbow did not move, either.

“So what do we do now?”

“We keep after him. He's a Yankee city-boy faggot, he ain't gonna get away.”

“I dunno.…”

Billy looked at his brother. “What's wrong with you now?”

“There's something weird about this spot. Don't you feel it?”

“Yeah, but so what? We ain't stayin' here. Now, get moving before I kick your ass, too.”

“You got a lot to learn about motivatin' people, bro,” Winslow said. He shuffled past me, within inches, and so did Billy. The dog scurried off in another direction, presumably back toward home.

I looked down at the ghost's hand on my arm. Was
that
why they couldn't see me?

When the sound of their footsteps faded away, the ghost released me. Again he pointed back toward the chapel. This time I nodded, turned in that direction, and when I looked back, he was gone.

I listened for any movement. I heard a scuffling in the leaves, but that was probably some harmless animal … right? And the wind above, making the tops of the trees creak … that was harmless, too. Oh boy. Despite the summer heat, I felt a real chill crawl up the backs of my arms, jump to my spine, and make its way to my neck. I'd just been touched by a
real fucking ghost.

I climbed slowly, my hands numb and my heart pounding. What the hell had just happened? Had the ghost of a character from the play really made me invisible? Was that even possible? Yet how else to explain the way the Durants walked past me, close enough to hear me breathing, and didn't notice me?

Then I had a terrifying thought: What if
I
was a ghost now, too? I stopped and took several deep breaths; ghosts didn't breathe, so that was a good sign. I touched the nearest tree, and my hand didn't pass through it. Another plus. Just to be sure, I pinched myself on the arm. Yep, it hurt.

I reached the chapel clearing. Everything was the same, but there was a clarity in the moonlight that hadn't been there before. I made out every detail in the stone, every leaf on the ground. I held up my hand, and could see every crease, every hair, every bit of newly accumulated dirt. It was exactly like the night on the porch, when I'd had my talk with Ray. And that had been a dream. Hadn't it? Still, it was undeniably magical, and I stood very still, taking it all in.

Then a girl emerged from the other side of the forest.

She was young, barely a teenager, and had the black Tufa hair. Her dress was long and old-fashioned. I couldn't hear her feet on the leaves, although I should've been able to. She carried what looked like a copy of the box we'd dug up, its wood new and shiny. And she was crying, her face contorted with emotion she could barely get out. If I concentrated, I could just pick up the sound, as if it were coming from a great distance instead of mere yards away.

I knew exactly who, and what, she was. The high forehead and dark eyes from the graveyard image made of shadows and sunlight were unmistakable. I so wished Julie could be here to see this.

“Hello?” I called tentatively. She ignored me.

She went into the chapel, and I followed. She put the box on a window ledge, then produced a shovel from the shadows. Still sobbing, she dug in the very spot we'd excavated before. But now the dirt was undisturbed, all evidence of our excavation gone. Was this
ghost dirt,
then?

“Uh … excuse me?” I said, louder than before. She still didn't acknowledge me. I risked her name. “Byrda?”

Behind me, a tall young man with rolled-up sleeves and suspenders stepped into the chapel. He, too, had the Tufa hair, only his was wavy and hung down past his ears. He had a slightly weak chin and a huge Adam's apple. Was this Shad? He said something, and despite our proximity, I made out only “honey,” and “angry.”

I focused intently to try to catch the words as Byrda responded. “Don't tell me not to be angry! I have every right to be angry! How am I supposed to face people after what you did to me?”

“It wasn't that big a deal,” the boy said.

“Maybe not to you! Maybe you do it to girls all the time! But it was a big deal to me!”

“Honey,” he said, and started toward her.

She raised the shovel like a weapon. “I'll cut your damn head off with this if you try to touch me, I swear.”

So the maybe-Shad had done something to Byrda, perhaps of a sexual nature. Is that what she meant about facing people? I felt conspicuous and awkward, but they paid me no mind. I eased closer, but their voices grew no louder.

“You can't just bury things, honey,” the boy said.

“The hell I can't! There won't be nothing for anybody to find now! You won't catch anybody else up here in this church, so this will stay hidden for good and forever. The only people who know about it are me, and you, and him. I ain't gonna tell nobody, and if you do, my daddy and brothers will change your voice for you, sure enough.”

“Honey, please,” he said, and from the back waistband of his pants, he pulled a gun. It was a big revolver, and it looked like a cannon. “I don't wanna have to do this. Please don't make me.”

She froze, shovel in hand. She glared at him and said, “Ain't nobody but
you
makin' you do this.”

“Let's just go back home and talk about it, okay?”

“Home?
Home?
What home? That house you share?”

“Honey—”

“Either shoot me or go to hell, Shad, I don't care which,” she said flatly. “I really don't.”

They looked nothing like the actors about to play them in New York, and nothing like I expected. They were so
young;
Byrda had the beginnings of that hard-edged look of Ladonna Parrish and Bliss Overbay, undernourished and overworked, while Shad was all gawky knees and elbows, having not quite grown into his adult self. And, if our story was correct, he never would.

Sure enough, the nameless ghost appeared at the door, dressed just as he had been at our earlier encounter. This time, though, he spoke. “Shad, what're you doing?”

Shad turned, and the gun swung with him. The nameless ghost ducked away. “Man, put that thing down!”

Shad did, holding it against his leg. “Sorry, Dobber,” he said.

Dobber?
I repeated to myself. His name was Dobber? I wondered how super-serious actor Stanley, who played him in the show, would take that.

“You and me need to talk,” Dobber said.

“Oh, I think he's done enough talking to both of us,” Byrda said bitterly.

“I didn't mean no harm,” Shad said.

“Oh, really? You and Dobber were supposed to be in love, and then you come courtin' me, all, ‘I ain't sure,' and, ‘I ain't never been with a girl,' and all that other bullshit.”

My eyes opened wide. What was I hearing? In the play, Dobber declared his unrequited love for Shad. But here it seemed they were already a couple, and everyone knew it. Just like everyone knew about C.C.

Then Shad raised the gun and pointed it at Dobber. He had tears in his ghostly eyes when he said, “I'm sorry, Dob. I do love you.” And he fired.

Unlike the distant words, the gunshot was loud and immediate. I jumped, and in that same instant the ghosts disappeared, along with my extreme night vision. Yet I still smelled cordite.

“Holy shit,” a voice said behind me.

I spun around. A teenage boy stood holding a rifle, which he'd evidently fired at the exact same instant as Shad. He turned toward me, pointing the gun at my midsection. Already keyed up, I reacted instinctively, and in moments held the gun while he lay moaning on the ground, hands clamped between his thighs.

“Who are you? One of the Durants?” I demanded.

“Ow! Yes … What the hell did you do that for?”

“You shot at me!”

“I wasn't shooting at you. Didn't you see them?”

“See who?”

“The chapel ghosts. I mean, I'd heard of 'em, but nobody I knew ever saw 'em. I thought they were just a story to keep people away.”

“And so your first instinct was to shoot them? Shoot at ghosts?”

“Yeah, reckon that wasn't too smart.”

He moved so that the moonlight struck his face. Although the Durant genes were plain, he really was a kid, and lacked the malevolence I'd seen in his older brothers. Perhaps it would develop later, along with facial hair and a deeper voice. I offered him a hand and helped him to his feet.

“Thanks,” he said. “Do you know where Billy and Winslow are?”

“They went thataway.”

“Can I have my gun back?”

“How do I know you won't shoot me?”

“Because I didn't when I had the chance.”

“Your brothers want to.”

“Yeah, well, they're assholes. They want to shoot me sometimes, too. I was out here to tell 'em Junior wants 'em to come home. We got a fire to put out.” He extended his hand. “I'm Logan.”

“Matt.”

“You must be the Yankee fa … I mean, the Yankee who beat up my brothers.”

“Yeah. It was self-defense.”

“I ain't doubtin' you. That's why Junior sent me to fetch 'em, so they won't get beat up again.”

I wondered if this was the same Junior who'd tried to interrogate me outside the convenience store. I imagined there were a lot of “Junior's” around here.

I gave him back his gun. “You better go find them, then, before they hurt themselves or someone else.”

He looked out at the woods. “Sure wish I'd brought a flashlight.”

“Sure wish I hadn't dropped mine.”

“And … I'd appreciate it if you didn't say nothing about seeing me. I'm the youngest, so I already get picked on a lot.”

“They'll never hear it from me.”

He smiled. “Thanks.”

He went off in the direction I'd indicated. Truthfully, I had no idea if that was the right way. I took a moment and oriented myself, then headed into the woods toward what I sure hoped was C.C.'s truck. I concentrated on movement, avoiding low branches and tangling vines. I tried not to dwell on what I'd seen or learned. After all, the real secret was waiting for me in that bag, right? What the ghosts had shown me was mere context, mere
prelude.

After what seemed like hours, I reached the truck. None of its lights were on, and I didn't hear the engine running. I hid behind a tree, watching. Someone sat behind the wheel, but I wasn't sure if it was C.C. It could've been a Durant, with his brothers crouched down in the bed.

I threw a small stick. It struck the front near a headlight and bounced harmlessly off. The door opened, and by the dome light I saw that it was, in fact, C.C. “Matt?” he whisper-called, one of the guns held ready. “Is that you?”

“It's me,” I said as I rushed over to the vehicle.