Reveal (Cryptid Tales) (3 page)

“
Sure Sweetie, where do you live? Do you know where you live?”

“
Yes, I think so. It’s a big blue house on the hill. It overlooks the water. My father has a boat there.”

“
OK then, to the lake we go. But first I have to stop and tell my friends, so they don’t worry, alright?”

“
Will you leave me?” she asks, looking like she will cry if I don’t give her the answer she’s looking for.

”
No, you just stand behind me. They won’t even know you’re there.” We walk up to the start of the course and I nurse my fake injury.

Coach comes jogging over to me in her matching blue Marksville Knights sweat suit. She has her hair cut short this season and it makes her facial features so much more defined. “Tafford? You OK?”

“
It’s just the cold, Coach. Not enough stretch time today, I guess. I’m just gonna head home, warm in up in the shower. I’m sure I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

She seems to believe me and reminds me to rub some Icy Hot on my leg before letting me head out.

We walk slowly up to my car. “Can you come in the car with me? I can drive you to your house.”

“
I’m not sure. I’ve never been in a car before.”

“
OK well let’s try this, go around the car and sit down on the seat. I guess you don’t really need a seatbelt. What’s your name?” I open the door and sit down. She simply floats through the passenger’s side door and sits down.

“
Wendy, and yours is Shay, right?”

“
Yeah, it is. How’d you know that?”

“
I know a lot of things,” she says as her blue eyes staring right at me.

With that, the car starts without me turning the key.

“
Whoa, you gonna drive this thing too?” I say grabbing the wheel as we fly out of the parking spot. She laughs a young girlish giggle.

“
No silly,” she says, “I can only start it, something with the electricity, I can control it.” With that she puts her thumb and forefinger together and produces a small blue spark.

“
Umm, that’s not normal.” I say staring at the spot where the energy was just made.

“
You can hardly discuss normal Shay, look who you’re talking to- a ghost, that’s not normal,” she says as a smile plays on her lips.

Valid point. I look at her closely, “Yeah but I can’t do anything like that, that’s a little excessive don’t you think? And doesn’t it drain you?” I don’t ever remember Jeremy messing with the electricity.

She looks at me and says honestly, “Not when I’m feeding off of your energy and you’re young so you have lots of it.”

OK creepy dead child who’s feeding off my energy
. I give her a hard look; children have never attempted to contact me before, why is she coming to me now? “Wendy, how long have you been lost?”

The girlish voice returns and suddenly she’s all sweetness again. “I don’t know, a long time I guess. My daddy will be looking for me. He’ll be happy I’m home.”

I don’t tell her I’m fairly positive “Daddy” is also dead and I’m not sure what we’ll find at the top of the hill overlooking the water, but I do know the blue house she’s talking about. It’s close to where the orphanage burned down, to where Jeremy and I used to play when I was a kid. I give her a side glance and I wonder… “Wendy, do you know a little boy? His name is Jeremy, he was my friend. We kind of had this fight and I haven’t seen him in a long time. Do you ever see other children like you?”

She looks back at me. “You mean dead kids? Oh yeah, all the time. There are all those kids who hang around the old orphanage. I play with them sometimes. But they’re scared, they hide from The Darkness. I’m brave and I don’t hide. It’s just a story from their mistress so they stay inside when it’s dark.”

I focus on this turn in the conversation I didn’t expect. “The Darkness? What do they say this darkness is?”

She sighs and returns her eyes to the window. “A really bad man, he tries to destroy all the good in the world. And he doesn’t like people, ghosts, or cats very much. Mostly he doesn’t like the cats because they can see him. I don’t know, it all sounds pretty fishy to me. I’ve heard her talk about it a couple times, but I don’t believe it.”

Interesting, well at least she doesn’t seem to be afraid of this thing.

Suddenly she points, “Turn off up there.” I turn right onto a dirt road; the Civic is not going to like this. There are branches coming at the Civic from all sides like fingers trying to grab at us. As I press the gas pedal I remember that she hasn’t answered my question about Jeremy.

“
So do you know a Jeremy?”

“
Oh yes, sorry I forgot about that. That’s how I knew about you.” She looks down and gives me a shy sideways glance like she shouldn’t have said anything.

“
You know him? He talks about me?” There’s hope in my voice, I know she can hear it.

“
Yes he misses you, he’s sad you banished him.”

I hit the brakes and we come to a screeching halt. As dust settles around us I turn to her and yell, “I did what? What are you talking about?”

She sighs quietly and looks at me. “You banished him. When you tell a ghost to leave they must abandon you, unless they’re haunting you of course. Then they don’t have to leave, it’s the rules.”

“
There are rules?” This is news to me, Jeremy never mentioned them before.

“
Oh yes, and since Jeremy was there to be your friend, when you told him you no longer wanted him, he left, as he should have. I mean he should have never been that close with you to begin with.”

I’m stunned. I never knew there were rules in the ghost business, why wouldn’t Jeremy have told me all of this? “Well what if I want to see him again?”

She smiles smugly, “I’ll show you how, once we find my daddy.” She holds out a small cold white hand and I shake it to seal the deal. We’ll find her daddy alright and I’ll see my Jeremy again. Two can play at this game.

I begin the car in drive again and we creep along silently for a while. The light is just beginning to die away and as much as I want to see Jeremy again, this whole situation is a bit much for me. So here I am with a dead girl in my car, in a super creepy forest, stalking a potentially dead father…yeah, not one of my brightest moments. After we’ve been driving for about twenty minutes in the lush forest, I begin to feel an electrical buzz. I look over to Wendy who, if it’s possible, is jumping up and down in her seat. The electricity feels like it’s rolling off of her nonexistent skin. It’s amazing, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. She notices me staring and says, “Oh sorry, it’s just were getting close. I can feel it.” Sure enough only a minute or two later we arrive in a clearing. A huge house stands before us. I shut the car off and get out slowly admiring the mansion. Wendy silently moves away.

In its heyday this place must have been immaculate; I can just barely make out the remnants of the sky blue paint that used to cover the exterior. A wide wraparound porch takes up much of what would have been the yard and the way the fence was built, there must have been a substantial garden. What now remains is a sad state of an old home. Broken shutters and windows litter the ground. I dodge them like bombs, giving them a wide berth, almost as if I disturb anything it will awaken more spirits. And one is enough for right now,
thank you very much
. I walk around to the side of the house and see that the French doors are missing. Near the empty doorway a white porch swing is still hanging, looking seemingly untouched compared to the rest of the home. Swinging back and forth on it is the little girl I brought here to look for her father.

“
Wendy? Are you OK?” I ask as I join her on the swing, it creaks in response to my weight, showing its age. Her head hangs low and in the fading sunlight I can almost see through her.

“
I thought he’d still be here,” she says in a whisper. “This is where I left him.”

I squint at her slightly, “Where you left him? What do you mean?”

“
When I died, he was still here. His grave is still here.” She points across the grass towards the water. She continues, “I thought if we came here, he would be here too. And we could be together.”

I feel her pain, I sometimes drive by my dad’s old job hoping he’ll walk out the front door of the lab, but he never does. “Tell me something Wendy, where is your mom?”

She looks right through me as if she’s back in another time, her time. “Mama died when I was born. She held me for two whole minutes before she slipped away. From then on it was just me and Daddy.” She looks back at the ground and she wraps her arms around herself as if she remembers the feeling of being held by her mother. It makes my chest hurt.

We sit on the swing for a while in the fading light. It’s not late but the early spring air becomes crisp and it stings my cheeks. Within minutes the sun is completely gone and I’m freezing. “Wendy,” I say as my teeth begin to chatter, “I need to get home. My mom’s going to wonder where I am.”

“
Oh yeah, OK.” She says, still not looking at me, instead she looks off into the woods. “I know where I am, I’ll be fine here.”

As much as I hate to leave the little girl alone, somehow I know she can handle herself.

“
Bye now.” I say as I touch her shoulder and I get up and walk to the car. I know if she wants to she can find me. I hope she does. I still want to see Jeremy, but I guess it’s not going to be tonight. She needs time to figure all of this out. I feel bad for the poor kid.

I start the car and immediately turn the heat to full blast. As I turn on the headlights I look up to the swing where I was just sitting to see it still swinging, but the little girl is gone, encased in the night.

When I arrive home my mom is sitting in the Adirondack chair with a blanket and a cup of hot coffee. I can see the steam rising from her mug and as I step out of the car the sweet smell fills my nostrils. “Got any more of that?” I ask her as I walk up to the house with my blue track bag slung over my shoulder.

“
Yep, fresh pot on the counter,” she says as she cups her hands around her own mug. I walk in the house and drop my bag by the door. I head right to the kitchen and see that Mom already has a mug set out for me on the counter. I smile as I fill it up and head back out the porch. “Think you can share a little of that blanket? Sure is chilly tonight.”

She looks up at me, “So you’re stealing my coffee and now my blanket?”

“
Yeah, pretty much.” I laugh.

She smiles a big toothy grin, “Of course I will share. Tell me about your day.”

I sit and take a sip of my hot drink to give myself some time. What do I tell her? I don’t want her to worry more about me. Last week when I skipped out on a class to visit Jeremy’s grave, the school called her and she came looking for me.

The historical society put up gravestones for all of the fire victims when I was about ten. I remember Jeremy feeling weird about it, but he also said it was nice, that he would always have a place to go back to. Kind of like a home, he described it, a special place just for him.

She found me in the small graveyard near the orphanage taking pictures. I was trying to see some orbs in the digital viewfinder. Maybe one would be Jeremy. She said my “obsession” with the orphanage and the children’s death is unhealthy and suggested I see a therapist. Usually she just listens to my brother’s and my problems without psycho-analyzing everything, but apparently this one had crossed the line. She thinks as we get older we’re going to have more questions about Dad and she worries.

“
Olivia and I went to the coffee shop before practice.” I start in; I mean I could tell her about part of my day at least. “I saw this guy,” Mom shifts in her seat to focus her full attention on me. “He’s the real dark and mysterious type.” I smile with one side of my mouth as I think about him.

My mom notices, “Did you catch his name?”

“
No.” I reply sternly, still annoyed that Olivia didn’t help me out in that department.

“
Well maybe next time,” she offers. That’s something I admire about my mom, she is the eternal optimist. With her bright blonde hair and tan skin she practically glows sunshine. I always wonder how I’m not adopted. My skin is almost as pale as some of the ghosts I’ve met and my hair is so dark that people constantly ask me if it’s dyed. My brother resembles my mom and possibly a little bit of my dad with his football player stature.