Chapter One: Ghost Story

Chapter One

Lincoln

GHOST STORY

Performed by Carrie Underwood

My ghost had returned, and the shock of it sliced through me with a brutal force. But instead of talking to me, instead of pushing me to acknowledge her as she once had, she moved away as if she didn't care that I was watching. She trailed through the ancient cemetery next door on light feet, looking more real than she ever had.

My pulse spiked, drumming itself through my limbs and making my stomach lurch.

I placed a palm on the window, and cold shot through me, reinforcing the fact I was awake. Awake and alive. The waxing moon flickered through the shifting fog as the spirit weaved between tombstones over frost-covered earth. I would have harshly rejected the clichéd image if an artist had dared bring it into my gallery.

Nothing unique about it. No new story being told.

A tired visual that was as old as death and cemeteries themselves.

Hair the color of the moonlight flowed behind the woman as she moved slowly amongst the decrepit graves. A translucent white skirt swirled about her ankles, echoing the spin of the mist. As if finally aware of me, she turned toward my house, lifting a sharp, narrow chin to the window where I stood shadowed in darkness.

Her hand grasped something at her neck, tugging nervously. The fine bones of her fisted fingers were echoed in sharply angled cheeks and a narrow, upturned nose. I'd once kissed those full lips. Ran my palms along the smooth skin of her face. Lost myself in the periwinkle-colored eyes.

The pain I'd thought was buried seeped into me.

And yet there was something slightly off about the image. The reality of her didn't quite fit on top of the memory. A copy that hadn't quite lined up straight.

She disappeared behind a family mausoleum, leaving me to stare at nothing but an aging fa?ade. The granite was cracked, moss creeped over it, and the archangel atop its peaked roof was missing a wing.

I finally forced myself away from the window.

One step. Then two.

It wasn't until I'd put half a dozen paces between me and the glass that I finally began to breathe normally. My lungs burned painfully after being denied a full inhale for a heartbeat too many. I tugged at a thick, dark eyebrow. An old habit that would leave my brows different shapes if I wasn't careful.

I'd been free of Sienna since opening the gallery in D.C. Starting her dream business had finally allowed her ghost to move on. Or, as my therapist insisted, once I'd accomplished our shared goal, it had allowed the guilt causing the hallucinations to begin with to disappear. Regardless of which was the truth, her ghost had vanished from sight six years ago and never returned.

Until now.

A chill passed over me, and I finally registered the ache seeping into my bare feet from the wooden floors. I hadn't turned on the heater last night, and the house was now an icy tomb. I pushed my way past the boxes stacked in the center of the renovated bedroom suite to the walk-in closet. The cedar scent from the built-ins was almost overbearing, but it would settle. I had to give it time. Give myself the same.

Change was never easy. It always disrupted my barely-held together routines.

I scanned the labels on the boxes, annoyed to find some of them were my sister Katerina's. The moving company had mistakenly grabbed hers along with mine from our family storage unit, and now I'd have to figure out what to do with them.

It took me several minutes to find the boxes with my clothes in them. When I finally pulled out a sweatshirt, I wasn't at all surprised to find it was from the Kreeger Museum. It had been Sienna's favorite place in the world at a time when my favorite place had been wherever she was.

My jaw cracked, the frustration carving through me growing another notch.

What right did Sienna have to return to me now?

The truth whispered back that she'd earned it the hardest way possible.

She'd died, and I hadn't.

I'd finally laid her to rest, hadn't I? Replaced her ghost with new guilts and then buried those as well. Moving to Cherry Bay was supposed to be the last shovel of dirt tossed on the grave of my past. I was turning the corner my parents, and the entire world, had expected me to turn more than a decade ago. Turning the corner my ex, Felicity, had screamed at me for not taking.

I pulled the sweats and a pair of socks onto my freezing body before returning to the king-sized bed to retrieve my cell phone from the nightstand. A single glance at the twisted wine-colored sheets proved I hadn't been sleeping even before I'd been drawn to the window and the quiet tombstones that complemented the heavy, Gothic furniture of my bedroom. I'd made this room mine specifically because of its neighbor, hoping the solitude would bring me restfulness and never suspecting it would return Sienna instead.

I maneuvered around more boxes to get to the door. The only thing I'd unpacked so far was a crate of artwork that now rested in the sitting area of the suite. A stack leaned up against the dresser, practically hiding the flat-screen television sitting atop it. Some of the art was finished and framed, while others were barely marked canvases waiting to be completed. The painting at the front was a poorly designed imitation of Sienna's that hung in my D.C. gallery.

We'd created the two pieces together as teens, laughing and snickering behind our art teacher's back. Mine was full of amateurish lines because I'd been distracted by her, while Sienna's was a masterpiece made by a sixteen-year-old. Her art now welcomed people to the gallery as she might have if she'd lived, with vibrant colors, strong strokes, and an eye-opening look at our world.

The hallway was dark, but its parquet floors shone in the moonlight as I made my way down the circular staircase. The white marble columns and mother-of-pearl inlaid ceiling had called to me the instant the realtor had shown me the two- story Colonial. With its silvery satin wallpaper and white woods, walking in the front door felt like entering a dream instead of a nightmare. Hopeful instead of hopeless. And I'd needed the hope. The escape.

Slipping past the antique door with its stained-glass panes, I headed straight back to the kitchen, where I glanced out the bay window to the graveyard. When no sign of my ghost greeted me, I flicked on a single drop light, turning incandescent moonlight into warm sunshine.

I'd saved as much of the original artistry of the house as possible while enlarging rooms, hardwiring technology, and hiding solar panels amongst the gray tile roof. But it was in the kitchen I'd done the most work. When my family came to visit, I wanted them to see something here, something in me, they hadn't seen in a long time—happiness. In this vibrant room hinting of flowers and cheerful meadows, I'd started to convince myself I could achieve it.

Here I'd found a respite from the ugly rumors. Peace from the nonstop barrage of media making me into a monster and Felicity into a saint. I'd started to step into the light of day.

But I should have known better.

I'd never truly escape the dark shadows that had chased me long before gossip, trauma, and ghosts. I'd forever be a figure shrouded in the night with my idiopathic insomnia causing me to rise after mere hours of sleep. A move to a town and a house that looked like it had stepped from the pages of a fairy tale wasn't going to prevent my sleeplessness any more than the drugs the doctors had once prescribed—drugs I now refused unless I'd gone weeks without rest.

The phone I'd stuffed into my sweats' pocket buzzed, jarring me from my brooding. One glance at the ridiculous text from my youngest sister eased the heaviness in my chest.

KATERINA: Perchance to dream my brother sleeps while I was out dancing amongst the strips of black and spotted stars.

Two in the morning in Virginia meant it was only eleven in LA, early for a Saturday night in Hollywood.

ME: Dare you torture me this early with your Shakespearian-inspired drivel?

KATERINA: A sister can hope you wouldn't respond because you were ACTUALLY SLEEPING. I thought things were better lately?

ME: Maybe I was and your text woke me?

KATERINA: You'd have ‘Do Not Disturb' on if that was the case.

ME: Which stars were you dancing with? Anyone I've seen on screen?

KATERINA: I don't kiss and tell.

I snorted into the silence.

ME: I didn't say kiss. I said dance.

KATERINA: Don't try to pry information out of me without answering my question first. How have you been sleeping?

ME: I've had several good nights in a row.

KATERINA: I guess that's decent for you.

ME: Before I forget, the moving company sent some of your boxes with mine. I'll stuff them in a guest room until you can decide what you want to do with them.

KATERINA: I can't even remember what's in them. You could probably toss everything, and I wouldn't even know.

ME: Fat chance of me doing your dirty work. The ones I've opened are full of clothes. If I toss them, you'll claim there was a one-of-a-kind Dior dress in there, and I'll have to cough up an unseemly amount of money to try and replace it.

KATERINA: You're such a cynic. But you're probably right. Plus, it gives me an excuse to come see your new place. Are you coming with Dad and Mom to California?

ME: No. With everything that went down with Felicity, it's probably better for me to keep off the campaign trail. They don't need me anyway. Dad's numbers are good. He's a shoo-in for reelection at this point.

KATERINA: No one is ever a shoo-in these days. But his numbers are good.

None of us would say aloud what we were all thinking, but the thank God this is the last campaign we'll ever have to live through still hovered unspoken between my twin sisters and me. The bulk of our childhood had been spent surviving one election after another. Now, as our dad's first term as President of the United States wrapped up, we caught glimpses of the end to the excruciating political process we'd lived through. Dad had achieved the mountain top, stayed there for as long as possible, and would soon be taking the easy road downward. While I admired him for choosing the difficult and unforgiving job of leading a country that seemed one step away from falling to pieces, I'd be grateful when it was finally behind us.

ME: Are you tagging along with them for any of the stops out West?

KATERINA: Just a couple events in California. We start shooting on a new film week after next.

ME: What about Juliette?

KATERINA: She'll pop in when her schedule allows, but she's so close to finishing her residency she can taste it. You'd know that if you texted her yourself.

It was a well-used but gently tossed rebuke. Texting was nearly impossible when I didn't even know where my phone was half the time.

ME: Stop throwing shade and go get some sleep. You're not as young as you used to be, and those nasty bags under your baby blues are becoming permanent.

KATERINA: I do NOT have bags, Mr. Grouchypants. You're the one who needs to drink some tea and slide under the covers for a few more hours before you turn pale and pasty like the vampire you really are.

I snorted at the Mr. Grouchypants nickname, pleased I'd needled her enough to use it.

I turned the electric kettle on, and while I waited for it to boil, I slit open the top box in the stack next to the island. I pulled out the contents, setting them on the rustic table I'd bought with thoughts of future dinners with my parents and siblings in mind. I'd dreamed of us eating, teasing, and playing cards at the roughhewn planks as a normal family once Dad's career was behind us. Except a normal family would never have the Secret Service hovering at the doors and windows as ours always would.

While the Secret Service would forever be a part of my parents' world, I'd had my fill of them. I'd sent my detail packing, and I wasn't sure yet if it had been the smartest or stupidest thing I'd ever done. Only time would tell, and I had plenty of it to spare. Plenty of privacy to go along with it.

I wasn't foolish enough to believe the privacy would last. Eventually, my presence in this tiny town would be discovered, and the media would swarm, especially once I opened a new gallery on Main Street. But for now, I could pretend I was just a regular man building his life in a quiet village where nothing bad ever happened and where the paparazzi weren't watching every move.

By the time my tea had been steeped, stirred, and grown cold again, I'd put away half the kitchen boxes. Thanks to my insomnia, in a few days the house would look like I'd lived in it for a lifetime. Then, I could turn my attention to the gallery.

I was still stumbling to find a direction there. The right vibe. But it would come into focus.

It had to.

While everything I'd done in the D.C. gallery had been for Sienna, the one here was for me. It was a chance to find my own footing, my own happiness. I just had to keep Sienna's ghost away long enough to make sure it happened. Because Felicity had been right about one, and only one, thing in our time together—I had to drag myself away from the dead and find my way back to the living.