CHAPTER 27
“Some people just don’t want to stay dead, Rowan.”
The voice coming from behind me was familiar and under the circumstances not entirely unexpected, so I didn’t turn around. Instead, I kept my gaze focused straight ahead on the remnants of the inscription in the weatherworn stone before me. There was actually very little of it still visible, but that didn’t matter. The particular mystery surrounding the missing letters had already been solved, and though only a few fragments of the letters remained, I knew exactly what it was supposed to say-Miranda Blanque 1808 – 1851.
I was standing near the back of Saint Louis Cemetery Number One, not far from the French Quarter in New Orleans. Shafts of pale light were stenciling my surroundings in not-so-random patterns, all courtesy of the jagged template of tombs and monuments that formed the immediate skyline. Grey shadows filled the areas in-between, laying a darkened patina across aged masonry, narrow pathways, and me. The air was still, and other than the voice and the sound of my own breathing, there was nothing in my ears but silence.
I had been here before, but that time I had been chasing Miranda. Now in a very real sense, she was chasing me. I suppose it made a poetic statement of sorts that her tomb would once again be the center point of it all.
“Does anyone really want to be dead?” I finally asked aloud, responding to the comment.
“There are a few.”
I turned around to face Ariel Tanner’s ghost. “Like maybe you for instance?”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’re still dead,” I told her. “You died almost ten years ago.”
“That’s true.”
“And?” I asked.
“And what?”
“And shouldn’t you have moved on by now? Been reborn into a new life? Or is Summerland and the whole reincarnation thing just a pipe dream after all?”
“Don’t over think it, Rowan,” she replied. “You’ll find the answer when the time is right for you.”
“Pretty typical non-committal answer, don’t you think?”
“You just need to…”
“You aren’t going to tell me I just need to believe, are you?” I asked, cutting her off before she could finish. “Because I’m running a little short on faith these days.”
“Actually, I was going to say wait. But would it help revive your faith if I said believe?”
I ignored the question and held her gaze for a long while before finally speaking again. “I’m not really used to this, you know.”
“Used to what?” she asked.
“Well, for one thing, up until very recently you’ve been non-existent. I haven’t even seen you for several years. I just assumed that when I solved your murder you had moved on.”
“To Summerland?”
“Or life. Knowing you, I figured you were probably a precocious kid somewhere, making life hard on some parents.”
“No over thinking,” she replied.
“Yeah. I suppose I should have known you would say that,” I replied with a shrug. “But, I guess what really has me perplexed at the moment is that I’m actually carrying on a conversation with you. In the past you would just point me at things and say something completely off the wall. Then I would have to give myself a migraine figuring out what you were trying to tell me.”
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
“So, you’re saying that this conversation has a hidden meaning?”
“I love autumn, don’t you?”
“Well, at least that part is,” I muttered, punctuating the comment with a low snort. “Staying the same, I mean.”
“Which part is that?”
“The cryptic answers, within non-answers, within hidden answers that make my head hurt.”
“Did you expect it to be any different?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t suppose so. To be honest, I didn’t expect much at all.”
“I love autumn,” she repeated.
“Since I’m having this unique opportunity to actually talk, mind if I ask how this is even happening?” As I spoke I twisted back toward the tomb and gestured. “I was fairly certain Miranda had somehow revoked my visiting privileges to your side of the fence.”
“Did she?”
“Help me out here, Ariel,” I said, turning back to her. “Am I answering that question for you, or for myself?”
“For whom do you usually answer them?”
I gave her a nod. “So…class is once again in session, I see.”
“You learn quickly.”
“Seems I used to say that about you.”
She smiled. “I had a good teacher.”
“And now you want to return the favor?”
“Have you ever imagined how you will die?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, yes. Way too many times.”
She stared back at me without saying another word. I held her eyes with mine, waiting for the next non sequitur to fall from her lips.
A moderate breeze began to blow, seemingly from nowhere. I looked at my surroundings and watched as it kicked its way through the cemetery. Fallen leaves tumbled over one another, caught up on the rising current of cool air, making a dry sound in the midst of the quiet. Slowly, the wind tapered off and silence cascaded around us once again.
I glanced back at Ariel. “You aren’t even really here, are you?”
“Perhaps I should ask you the same thing,” she replied.
I snorted and shook my head. “We both know I’m not.”
“Do you?”
“I know I’m in a hospital bed and pretty well drugged up. I also know that a seriously nasty spirit has managed to shut the door between the worlds for me. So, I have to assume that either I conjured you from recent memories and this is just a really screwed up dream, or I just went ahead and died,” I announced, holding out my arms and twisting in place. “I don’t feel dead, at least I don’t think I do. So, my guess? All of this is drug induced. Just a bad trip is all.”
“Are you sure?”
I settled my focus back on her and said, “Yes.”
Ariel shrugged. “If that’s what you want to believe.”
“Can you give me a reason why I shouldn’t?”
Instead of answering verbally, she simply reached out, placed her palm against my chest and gave me a gentle push. I stumbled back and then went into freefall.
As darkness folded in around me, I heard her say, “Some people just don’t want to stay dead, Rowan.”
I heard a woman scream.
Her scream was my scream.
I felt pain as she struck the hard surface of the water.
Her pain was my pain.
I felt panic as the swift current pulled her under.
Her panic was my panic.
I felt death as the silty river flowed into her lungs.
Her death was my death.
