15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

W ith our trusty camcorder, we returned to the pumpkin patch, found the creek, and made our way down from where the more recent plot was located.

The Schmidt spirits were still restlessly parading the limits of their graveyard, each of them staring at us as we moved by, heads into the wind, their calls catching in the breeze. I did stop to shout at the elder Schmidt that we were working on things.

Gerhard seemed displeased, but that was too bad. Sometimes things moved at the speed they were ordained to move. Phil was talking to Roxie and Tray. Both had said they were sticking around to see this whole thing through. They cut the stream after the meeting at the Schmidt farm and stuck up a "Be Right Back" notice.

I hoped the people who had paid to see this to the end weren't too upset that it was taking this long. I'd have liked to be in bed now too, and I probably could have been, but it didn't feel right to be cozy and loved when a mother and child were seeking each other. Maybe I was taking this harder than someone who had not lost his mother, but if there was a chance of being reunited with my parents, I would like to think some random stranger would help. Even if it took hundreds of years for that assistance to arrive.

The apple trees seemed to be creaking ominously, which was total nonsense, but the cold winds rattling the dead leaves and boughs sure made it feel creepy. Phil tried to keep up the banter as best as he could, but I had a banger of a megrim, as Reg would call it, taking root, so my replies were more curt than I wished they would be. Still, we slogged along the creek bank until we found an oak, a mighty thing that grew around a knot in the center of the tree, the limbs twisting then spreading out in macabre ways. The moon's glow gave it a pasty white coloration, and the dead leaves at its base danced in the cold wind.

Stepping on slick stones we crossed without incident, pushing through a wall of wild grapevines to find several headstones, crumpled and mossy, weathered so badly that many were indecipherable. We moved through the plot, clearing away vines and centuries of bird droppings with our now filthy hands, looking at each smooth slab of marble. Several small visages appeared, weak little balls of essence that floated above their burial mounds, whispering to me. Songs and rhymes mostly, a few just watching like a cat from under the bed, their soft childish tones twisting me into a knot that the old oak behind us would envy. It was always the laments of the dead children that hurt me the most…

Alone by a clump of overgrown berry brambles, a small form knelt in prayer. Her dark head bowed, and the melodious sounds of Spanish reached my ears at the same time her gaze touched mine.

"Josefina," I called. Big dark eyes, the color of ink, widened. She rose into the air a few inches, tentative, unsure, her plain brown dress stuck to her small form. Her left arm and leg were badly mangled, both hanging down lifelessly, turned in the wrong angles I saw now.

"Did you find her?" Phil asked, moving to stand beside me, his camcorder running, the light showing the world nothing but a pile of rubble and a mad clump of blackberry thicket.

"I did," I softly replied, the other small forms' whispers growing louder, the tightness in my head increasing as they called out to me. "There are others here." The languages were varied, some German, Spanish, and some that sounded Jamaican. "I'm trying to focus on Josefina. She's tiny, with some sort of birth defect affecting her arm and leg. That or she was in an accident of some sort. Can you give me your—" Something tapped my arm. I glanced from the little girl watching me from her berry bramble hideout to the cell phone open, app running, in Phil's hand. I looked from the flip phone to his beautiful face. "I could not adore you more than I do right now."

"It's the tight white pants," he parried back, and I actually snickered. It made my brain cramp, but it was worth it. "Talk to the ghost, not me," he said. I yanked my sight from him to find Josefina now levitating a few feet from me, her attention on the barely audible Spanish flowing from the phone. I turned up the volume.

"Josefina, your mother is searching for you." I waited for the translation to hit home.

"Mamá!" she cried out, hugging her slim body with one good arm. Words flew out of her then, her spirit coming closer, her speech alive with excitement. She wanted her mother to come get her from the apple people. I glanced at Phil.

"There's no way to get Aradia here," I whispered to Phil. "She's bound to the lake. She cannot leave it or she would have by now." Josefina began to wail as my words were translated into her native tongue. I winced at the shriek of utter despair. Such agony from such a small thing. It was as strong as her mother's grief. I could not bear it. "No, no, don't cry. I can take you to your mother."

The girl fell silent aside from weak sniffles. Phil turned to me. The camcorder's green light lit, my eyes watering. From the light. Yep, that was it. "How are you going to do that?"

"I'm going to let her possess me."

Phil stared at me as if I had porcupines dancing the hokey pokey on my head.

"No," he replied, his voice strained, the camera lowering slightly. Far off, the call of blackbirds broke into the pleas of ghostly children. One touched me, a brush, and my head filled with images of picking apples. The shiv of pain sliced into my head. "No, no, you said that you did not do seances and shit because allowing spirits into your body is bad."

"That's adults," I countered, wholly full of absolute bullshit. I truly had no clue if a tiny ghost would pose the danger that a mature apparition might. Surely Josefina would simply ride along, her joy at possibly being with her mother ensuring that she would remain on the side of friendly interactive apparition. An FIA child inside me would be fine. It would be fine. It would be fine. "She's a child. Children have no malicious intent." I purposely ignored the knowledge of the Tewberry twins.

"But you said no ghosts inside you. And now…"

"Phil, the child is begging me to reunite her with her mother." I rubbed at my throbbing brow with my fingertips. "Do you want me to just walk away? After all we've done tonight to reunite them?" He folded. I saw it. He did his best not to show it but his face was too expressive, his heart too good not to see this was the right thing to do, my fears be damned. "It will be fine, I promise. She's a little girl eager to simply be with her mom. Plus, you'll be with me as will the viewers." I glanced at the camera wobbling about in his grip. Roxie would give me a gold star for remembering them. I was a terrible streaming host. "We can do this."

"I don't like it, Arch." I could see the worry etched into his face. "But I also don't want to keep a mom from her kid."

I rose to my toes to kiss him on the lips. Let the viewers think what they will. "Thank you. It'll be fine. I just know it." I patted his scruffy cheek.

Liar, liar, pants on infernal fire.

Turning from Phil, I found Josefina close at hand, her big dark eyes on me and only me. Sucking in a steadying breath, I drew in the smell of lotus. Moms never truly abandoned their children. That soft, aquatic scent reminded me.

"Can you step into me?" I asked the phone and it spit out my question in Spanish. Josefina raced at me, her phantasmal form slamming into me before I could even brace for impact. The jolt to my body was nil, but the force to my mind and spirit was akin to having a Clydesdale thunder into you. My legs buckled as images of someone else's past roared to life behind my eyelids. Tears, fear, wails for mother, a small room with other children, little to eat, early mornings, long days in vast orchards, meager meals, a lash to the back, whimpers in the night, a fall from a wagon, snapping bones, the smell of death as infection set in, darkness, and dirt…

"Arch!" Phil shouted, snapping me out of the deluge of childhood recollections. My eyes popped open, my lungs sucked in moist air, and I gazed at Phil. I can feel her inside me, like a lingering fever that clouds your mind as it saps your body. "Arch, you're bleeding. Your nose."

"Anime come to life," I croaked, swiping my sleeve under my bloody nose. My headache was now at the vomiting range, but I steadied myself while swallowing down the bile. "We should go."

"Is she…is she inside you?" Phil asked. I nodded slowly, feeling the child settling under my ribs like a cat curling up on a cushion. "Shit, this is…Arch, I don't like this."

"Me either," I whispered in reply. Phil took my arm, and we left the other little spirits behind, my nose leaking steadily as we walked all the way back to his truck, tiny snippets of a past that was not mine playing inside my mind as I stumbled along. To her credit, Josefina did not try to push into my thoughts or overtake my body in any way. Until we crawled into the truck, then the child within me could not contain herself.

Her hand moved mine to the stereo. Phil sat watching, the camera still on, as I began pushing buttons and grinning at the flash of different songs that played as we scanned radio stations.

"She's curious," I explained. A station crackled to life. Josefina released my hand when she heard an old Shakira song. The child sat in stunned silence leaving me to try to clarify what was going on inside me to Phil, and the viewers, as best I could. "She likes Shakira."

"Who doesn't?" Phil asked as he sped to the lake, the ride filled with beautiful Spanish singers and songs, the tiny being nestled deep in me being a perfect guest. The nosebleed was unpleasant, the nearly blinding headache terrible, but somewhere under all the discomfort was a tiny nugget of pleasure in knowing that I was doing something good. Something I had been born to do. To be honest, the realization was overwhelming, but I was so busy trying not to be buried under all the other overpowering things I was dealing with, stumbling into what might be my life's calling had to be put aside. I'd work that all out tomorrow if my head didn't explode like a ripe melon before dawn arrived.

The ride was quick. Phil was not obeying speed limits. Hopefully, Sheriff Wright was not watching or the law would be visiting my boyfriend soon.

"I want to call you my boyfriend," I announced as we slowed to a stop at the railroad bridge.

Phil shot me a wary glance. "Is that you talking or the little girl because if it's Josefina then I'm going to have to decline since she's like ten. And dead."

"No, it's me. She's content listening to Becky G. I just wanted to say that while we're alone and before we head back to the lake." Phil used his sleeve to pat my nose. "Thanks. I know this is not the most romantic place to have this conversation, but I would love to say you are my boyfriend."

"I would so love to kiss you right now, but…" He waved a hand at me.

"Yeah, there's a child present. When she's gone, will you kiss me?"

"Totally. I will totally kiss my boyfriend." He gave my knee a squeeze. "Now let's get this kid to her mom. I don't like how pale you are."

He skipped over the steady dribble from my nostril. What a gentleman. I had to look like death warmed over. Ha. Oh yeah, the psychic headbanger in my skull was making me all kinds of witty. Not.

"Yeah, I feel a little washed out," I confirmed as I slid from the truck into the early morning of November 1st. Night still held onto the sky.

Phil and his camera led the way, the trek taking less time as the brush had been shoved down somewhat on our previous trip. Josefina was anxious, her thoughts creeping into mine, distant memories of a cat and a tiny house with warm soup she liked. Mama was there, humming, making special potions for people to sip when they had belly aches. I had to stop a few times, clasping Phil's hand tightly, to push back the visions of my passenger. The calls of blackbirds wiggled into the brambles and rose bushes as we neared the lake. The strong smell of metallic water hit my nose. We broke free, the light from the camera Phil held sweeping out over the lake. Pitch-black mist rising from the surface and the shuffling of small, winged bodies greeted us.

I moved to the water's edge. Phil's hold on my hand was so strong it hurt. But that was a good thing as that pain kept me tethered to the moment.

I called out to Aradia, my shout disturbing the blackbirds roosted nearby. She rose from the water, fiery eyes latching onto me.

"Bring up your phone," I whispered to Phil. He did as asked with the camera rolling and handed it to me. "I have your daughter with me. She's come along to—"

Aradia came monumentally unglued. Her mouth opened wide, then emitted a scream that dropped me to my knees in a heartbeat. She screamed at me in Spanish, and I did my best to repeat what she was shrieking at me.

"Turn…oh god I feel sick," I croaked, blood dripping from my nose to my pant leg. "Turn…let…give her to me or you…shit…pájaro vuelta pájaro. What is…bird turn bird. Like the others…liars all…men…took my baby…burn me." It took me a moment to sort it all out as my brains felt like they were leaking out of my ears. Josefina was scared now. This visage was not the mother she remembered. "She says…shit she's the one who turned the men into birds and she's considering doing it to me."

"Tell her she can't have her daughter back unless she promises not to do that to people. It's fucking rude to turn dudes into birds!" Phil shouted into the night. Honestly, if the cops came along right now, they'd haul us both in for a psych evaluation.

"Oh god…" I gasped as I clutched my middle. I barked out what Phil had said into the phone, the translation flowing out to the irate ghost hovering in front of me. She wanted to lash out, I could tell, but she had to sense that her child was within me, and so she merely cussed at me in vibrant Spanish. "Promise no more deaths, or I will go home and take Josefina with me. Swear it!"

"Lo juro. Dame a mi bebé." I swear. Give me my baby. Okay, that was her vow. I closed my eyes and whispered to the little girl inside me that it was safe now. Her mama was just angry at the bad men who had taken her away. The tiny energy ball that was this precious child left me kneeling on the bank as she burst free like a comet of an otherworldly life force. They embraced, joining as one light. Aradia enveloped her child in her arms, cooing at her baby girl, as they began to fragment into motes of light. Phil gasped when I fell back into him, my head ready to split from the impetus of two spirits coming together.

"They're together now," I raggedly said. "They're joined, mother and child."

Aradia glanced over her daughter's head to find me hanging like a wet shirt in Phil's strong arm.

"Gracias," she said as they broke apart, their energies moving over into the next step of their journey. The ripples on the lake calmed. The blackbirds quieted.

"Aradia and Josefina are so happy," I babbled as I turned my head to smile at Phil, my boyfriend, and I promptly passed out in his arms.