CHAPTER ELEVEN


I returned a few more times to the cemetery, but I never expected a miracle.
The dates never matched with Munsinger's text.


I waited around Paynes for another month. I caught a few poker games, was
surprised to see Oscar across the table at one, and wasn't surprised when he
opted out in need for a walk.


I'd cleaned up the table that night and the money paid for the rest of my
expenses.


I even shared a few drinks with Oscar at Borbon's Bar, met Borbon and
discovered he was a hooted delight.


He had the same peppered beard and hair, but he didn't have the supernatural
calm about him that clung to Oscar's weathered shoulders.


I took up Oscar's dinner invitation and met Abagail, who wore one braid down
past her shoulder with graying strands tucked among the rest.


She had kind eyes and a kinder nature.


Dinner had proven to hit home within me and I felt like I'd sat down to my
first family dinner throughout my lifetime.


They had three sons and one daughter, who all visited a few times during the
year, with twelve grandchildren coming to visit for the holidays.


On the night of my third dinner at their home, Oscar found me on their porch,
curled with a blanket on my lap, and my hands twisted inside for warmth.


He sat next to me on the crickety porch swing and harrumphed, "You might as
well tell me about this guy."


Nothing. I said nothing.


Oscar lifted up a leg to the porch before us and gently pushed us back and
forth for a slow methodical rock.


He added, "You waiting something out and I'm figuring it's a guy."


"He's the brother of Brian Lanser."


We'd never talked about the coffin that I had asked for. It was a
conversation each of us acknowledged, but never spent attention to it.


Oscar gave it his attention now.


"And what'd he do? Why you trying to track him down?"


"He put my brother in prison."


Oscar was quiet for a moment, but he remarked, "You don't strike me as the
vengeful type and I usually read 'em right the first time."


"How'd you read me?"


It was a question turned in reverse because I usually received that question.
I'd never requested it. Until now.


Oscar hummed deep in his throat and a moment later, he spoke slowly, like
smooth whiskey, "You got a clear head on your shoulders, but it was put there
too soon in life. And you're searching for something."


"What am I searching for?"


I hadn't looked at him since he first sat and I still didn't. We conversed
with each other, but not to each other.


He hummed again and I caught a melody from his favored Blues artist.


He spoke again, "You searching for completion."


I looked at him now and raised an eyebrow.


"Don't ask me what that is, but you asked what I read from you. That's what I
read."


"Maybe you can meet with that Hoodoo witch and she can tell me what'll
'complete' me."


"Nah. You don't mess with that stuff."


I'd done some research at their library, enough to recognize a symbol for
safety that hung from Abagail's neck.


"You do." I said swiftly.


He wasn't surprised, but he just shrugged. "Abby believes in a few things,
she does, but it ain't for you."


"What makes you think that I'm searching for completion?" I asked. Since I
was in a truthful sort of mood.


"You got the look that those do who are searching for something, riches,
love, the God Almighty, but with you—you searching, but it ain't of those vices.
There's only one other thing that I know of and that's for a completion to
something that ain't right inside a person."


"So is something not right inside of me?"


"You aim to win what you wanted out of me without a truthful word that passed
your lips. I'd think, anyone who looks for that as quick as you, something ain't
right inside of them. They ain't happy."


"You don't think I'm happy?"


I was more stunned that he'd read me so correctly. Hearing that he thought I
wasn't right or wasn't happy, that wasn't surprising. I just hadn't expected it,
not such raw truth from a still mere-acquaintance.


"Anyone who's waiting out the calendar for someone to show up at a grave's
side—they ain't fully right." Oscar grunted as he shifted and sought more
comfort in an unyielding rocking bench made of wood and metal.


"I'm not waiting for revenge." I remembered his earlier statement, that I
wasn't the vengeful sort.


"No, I reckon you ain't, but I still don't got a clue as to why you'd want to
meet someone who put your own kin in prison."


"My brother was guilty."


He'd put himself in prison.


"So what? What you want with someone like this fellow?"


It's what had set me on the journey, but I still didn't really know.


"I don't know." I admitted, taken aback as I fully realized all I'd done for
a mission that I didn't understand. I didn't understand a part of me because
there was something inside of me that had demanded and chased this path with
sheer determination.


"That's a fool's trip." Oscar grunted. "Only a fool does something without
thinking it through."


"I've never been a fool in my life."


"Don't mean you ain't a fool now. There's always a first time."


Perhaps I was a fool to chase a ghost, to come all the way I had, but I was
there and it was two more nights before the dates matched.


Two more days.


"I may be a fool, but I don't feel a fool."


"Neither did I when I married my first wife. That turned out to be the most
damn foolhardy thing I'd do in my lifetime. Cost me a toe and an empty bank
account to get her out of my life."


I grinned, "I'm not marrying the boy and how'd you lose the toe?"


Oscar chuckled, but shook his head. "That ain't a story for now. That's a
story for drinking times and when the whiskey's run out."


"This night could be that night."


Oscar looked, studied, and denied again. He harrumphed, his decision final,
"Now ain't that time, but I want you to think of my words as you wait out this
idea you got set in your head. You wonder where's the fool and I'll guarantee,
you'll see flags along the way. If you see 'em, you take a notice to them."


Flags for the fool or none for the wiser?


"I always thought blindsight made the fool." I noted.


"You not blind anymore. I set your sights clear." Oscar smiled arrogantly and
scratched the top of his head. "I best be getting to bed. Abagail wanted me to
talk with you. She was worried, but I figure there's no harm in a talk. Took me
about another twenty years before I could sit my ass down for one of these
'talks' with my own kids." He patted my knee, "How'd I do?"


"You did great."


But who was I to judge? I'd never really been given a heart to heart
before.


"Abby wanted me to tell you that you're always welcome around these parts.
We've grown, but our kiddies are long gone with their own families. Abby's on
the look-out for another kid, but I told her we couldn't make one ourselves.
Now, if one came a meandering around and found us—that's another thing. Another
thing."


"Oscar, honey." Abagail came to the door and said through the screen. "Come
on in here. There's some news going on that you might want to know about."


The chair squeaked as his heavy weight was lifted clear, but he pushed
himself upright and asked as he turned, "What sort of news, Abby?"


His wife stared at him in earnest and whispered, stricken, "A body washed up
the river not far from here. The sheriff just radioed out here. The body's on
our lands."


"How much land do you own?" I asked.


I'd never heard a wealthy gravedigger, but I'd never met a professional who
dug graves before.


"Marshall wants to talk with you about the body." Abagail said further.


"I'd reckon he wouldn't be the sheriff we'd hoped he'd be if he didn't want
to speak to us." Oscar murmured as he walked inside and grabbed a coat and hat.
With his truck keys in hand, he returned a moment later and climbed into a rusty
Dodge pick-up. The muffler woke the sleeping cows, but it roared to silence as
he pulled down the lane and disappeared around the bend of trees not long after
that.


Abagail fanned herself with a hand set to her hip, "I hope this ain't
starting again."


"What's starting again?"


She took a deep breath and sighed a weariness I'd never heard before. One
from already knowing what was to come and yet hoped the bone-deep awareness and
surety was wrong.


If it went that deep, it rarely was.


"A slew of bodies showed up around these parts seven years ago. We had FBI,
all sorts of government out here for a year on end, but nothing was found." She
shook her head as she still gazed where her husband had left. "I hope they don't
start again. All sorts of people get more crazy when their minds starting
playing tricks on them. I'm sure a few of those bodies came out of terrified
nerves, but who am I to speculate?"


She turned and returned through the door. I heard as she mumbled to herself,
"I ain't no police, that's for sure. I don't know a thing."


Abagail retired to bed a little later after a goodnight to myself and a quick
offer for anything I'd like. I declined the offer and said I was content to sit
a spell, but Abagail brought out a cup of steaming hot chocolate with another
blanket and a plate of warmed cookies.


She shushed away my reiteration that I was content with what I had, kissed my
quick forehead, and went off to bed.


Her bedroom light switched off not long after that, but I knew she had stayed
up awhile to read the good book for her daily devotions.


I sat for another few hours, content to sit among the darkness with the
sounds of a night that surrounded me. Those who'd only lived in the cities
might've been fearful from the silence. They never stopped to listen to all that
wasn't silent in forests as deep as West Virginia.


I heard the sounds and I heard enough to know there were many living
creatures out there, some human and some not.


Oscar came barreling back by the time I'd stood to leave for my own bed that
night. I'd taken one step off their porch with my blankets folded atop the
rocking bench when his lights swept back through the woods. His truck followed
shortly after and I crossed to stand at the garage just as his door creaked open
and shut.


The darkness hid a many detail, but I still saw the same tiresome voice I'd
heard from Abagail.


He met my eyes and shook his head. He rested an arm on top of his truck's
hood and asked, "Abby fill you in?"


"She said there was a spell of bodies that showed up seven years ago."


"There was." He nodded. "And they all cleaned up on my shores. I got hauled
in every night and morning when another showed up. Police knew where to look.
They never bothered searching other spots because the bodies all showed up at my
doorstep."


"Are you a suspect?"


"I'm always a suspect." He sighed and ran a hand over his bearded stubble.
"But I never been acquitted or charged. They never got a thing and it ain't my
fault the tide washes to my bank."


"It's uncommon for a gravedigger to own as much land as you."


He shrugged and grinned, "I didn't only do grave-digging in my life."


"The murders stopped before?"


"Yep, they did, but not after we had every lawman in these parts, poking
their noses under each bushel we owned. They was about to start on the town when
the murders stopped."


"You think it's going to start again?"


"I sure hope not, but I guess it might be." He hoisted himself back to his
feet and shuffled past. He clapped a heavy hand to my shoulder and murmured,
"You might want to not be around these parts when all those lawmen arrive."


He walked past and it didn't take long before I heard Abagail murmur a tired
hello as he crawled into their bed.


As I moved to my rented car, I knew that even though Hoodoo was more a
southern tradition, among all the woods, rivers, and mountains—it seemed there
was life among those parts that wasn't all humanly. Again, I could easily
believe that when Oscar had murmured that he felt eyes on his back and they
weren't of the dead—with a shiver down my back—I could believe it.


It wasn't the first time since I'd arrived to their town and home that I'd
been scared from prying too close because I had a gut feeling that I'd find
something more than I wanted.


One more night and I'd hoped to be long gone before those lawmen showed.


One more night.


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


When I returned the next night, gray clouds hovered atop the ground. The
cemetery seemed even more the embodiment of sacred and hallowed. The details
stuck out further, possibly because the town's festival didn't overshadow and I
hadn't visited for two weeks. I was able to see how the tombstones popped above
the dirt and grass with sayings and calling cards. They were the frontdoor to
those that lay below. Someone wouldn't approach and knock on a door, but they'd
rest some flowers, sit a spell, and murmur a few words.


I had learned that the cemetery was of respect, not a home for stories to be
whispered about.


The trees still protected what lay between them and as I stood before their
whispering branches, the leaves communed with the other. They knew why I stood
there and the path was blocked tightly until I no longer could see the trail
that led inwards to Brian Lanser's resting place.


He wasn't visited on his birthday or on the anniversary of his death. No,
this night celebrated the anniversary or his baptism.


And, as my feet tread softly upon the dew-ridden grass, I walked as a ghost.
I moved as a ghost and I knew, if any had seen from the road—their imaginations
wouldn't have to make a jump. I looked as a ghost, but I wasn't the ghost. In
that moment, I believed that I was the only natural thing there.


This was the night, if of any. This was the night that Jace Lanser would
visit his little brother because it meant something. Something beyond both their
lives.


A baptism, no matter the religion, means a rebirth. A cleansing.


That was why Brian Lanser was visited on that day—it was the anniversary of
his cleansing and rebirth. And of his acceptance into an afterworld, a heavenly
afterworld.


I stopped inside the pine trees, just at the clearing and watched. The trees
had rescinded their guardianship and allowed me pass.


There he stood with his head bent forward.


Jace Lanser looked taller and leaner. His back told a story of someone who'd
shouldered his unfair burden and yet, he'd volunteer again and again.


He had captivated me once and I knew he would captivate me again.


I watched, quietly.


He prayed for his little brother, one who hadn't been quiet of his dislike
for the elder Lanser.


That was another known fact. Brian and Jace Lanser were not co-habitable
souls. They fought and often violently. And they loved. That love was evident as
Jace Lanser stood above and prayed.


"If you leave now, I'll let you." Jace spoke with his back turned. His head
rose.


I was surprised. I usually saw them tense and ready for a move. I hadn't seen
that breath enter Jace Lanser's body. And then I realized, he'd never been
relaxed. He breathed for his life, every last breath, ready to do and for
whatever. I'd imagine that he slept with tension.


Jace Lanser turned and I saw myself in his grey eyes. Thirty feet separated
us and I was still pierced for his eyes, even as the cloud swirled amongst us
and the trees.


We weren't the only two alive in that cemetery. The trees thought. As did the
ground. The earth thought most of all. In that moment, Jace Lanser and myself
were quite small compared to everything else.


His gun wasn't drawn, but I knew it would appear as magic if needed.


"Who are you?" He asked roughly, guarded.


"Someone who knows you." I replied smoothly, assured.


"You opened with that? You're either very good or very dumb."


"I've never been called dumb. And I don't know what the 'good' would
pertain."


Jace just studied me. I had seen the recognition. He knew that he knew me and
he wanted to remember before I supplied that answer. He needed as much
information without getting any from me.


It was his game.


I knew, because it was Krein's. And it was mine. I understood that mind. I
could step into that mind when needed and decided upon. And I had to get me
where I stood upon now.


Jace had been studying me. His eyes shone an intelligence I hadn't met. My
comfort lay on the other end of that stare. He had flipped roles with me.


"Do you know me yet?" I asked and tilted my head to the side. I knew the
moonlight caught and sparkled from my eyes. I knew the image I envisioned
through his eyes.


I saw the dial click into place. He knew who I was, but he wasn't going to
share.


"Who are you? I don't have time for games."


I nodded behind him. "I think your brother's death should prioritize time
more so. Don't you think?"


When someone rode the wind, time ceased it's strings. Some people who felt
those strings more than others, when their path crossed deaths, felt those
strings loosen.


Brian Lanser had died a baby's death. He'd been the youngest and survived by
an elder brother, a father, and possibly a mother.


It's unnatural. Death has an order and Brian Lanser cheated that order.


I knew any older brother would be reminded of the unnatural evolution.


Anyone else would've snapped at my out-of-line statement. Jace Lanser did
not. He studied me further.


I spoke, "I know who wants you. I know who you are. I know who your brother
is." I knew that if I had played my games with him, he would've seen through
them. I would've lost before I had even started. So I spoke the truth.


"Was."


"Is." I corrected swiftly. I proceeded, "And you know who I am. I am not here
for vengeance, for death, for money."


"Then why are you?"


I had to answer that question to myself.


"I don't know." I said truthfully. He'd only hear the truth. My gut knew
that. "It's a need in me and it won't die down. That's all I know."


He still had to say a name. Any name—even his.


"I wasn't followed. I'm not…I figured out that you'd be here because it made
sense to me. No one else would think of this date and it's significance."


Jace cursed and ran a hand over his jaw. "Are you for real?" He peered at me
intently.


"I am no ghost." I grinned faintly.


"Not what I meant." He cursed swiftly.


"Give me another definition of real." I offered.


He cursed again and shook his head. "I could do without this, you know."


I felt the chilled nightwind graze the grass. It swung it's way through the
cemetery and as it passed by, the wind threw an arm to us in our concave of
trees.


"You never saw me." I murmured, almost to myself. His presence had thrown me
off-balance and I didn't know how to find sure footing. I kept floudering as I
fell to the ground. That's what I felt in those moments.


Jace fell silent. He listened.


I added, somber. "You passed me once, but you never looked at me."


He narrowed his eyes.


"You recognized me now." I told him. I'd known and I wanted him to know that
I'd known.


"You look like your brother." Jace offered. Finally.


"You never looked like your brother." I offered also, but held back.


Jace snorted and swore. "I have to go."


I knew the gun would not make an appearance.


"Can you not?" I asked and met his eyes fiercely. "Can you not?"


"You said it best. You're not here for vengeance, but those people
are out there. I have to go. I have a job and a deadline."


His brother's grave beckoned behind him.


"Your brother doesn't care about deadlines." I nodded behind him.


Jace raised an eyebrow and said evenly, "My brother's not alive to care."


"Shouldn't that say something to you?"


Now he was irritated.


"I'd like to know my brother's best friend." I said further, ignoring his
annoyance.


Jace scowled and murmured, "I'm not anyone's best friend."


"You were best friends with my brother."


"I played a role. It was a job. That's all."


"You're lying." I said quietly, steadily. "Your breathing doesn't go shallow.
Your pupils don't dilate or shift up and to the left. You don't twitch. Your
face stays the same, but I know that you're lying."


"Do you also know that you're pissing me off? People tend to die when they
piss me off."


"Six years of undercover. When did you change your mind?" I stalled. He knew
I stalled. I didn't care that he knew. I still stalled.


"Do you actually know who I am? Because people are looking for me for a
reason." He spelled it out.


"And I was the one to find you. Think about that?" I challenged as I stepped
to the side, as if to meet him head on and block his passage.


He hadn't moved, but I felt his intentions. He was about to leave.


"You're smart." Jace expelled. "You and I both know that you're smart, but
you're right. I don't think you're here to kill me and I don't even think you
were followed. You're a nutcase. No one follows a nutcase for a reason, but I
don't have time to sit and chat, no matter whose little sister you are."


My time was running out and I still didn't know why I felt it's constraints
or why I listened to it.


Breathless, I asked again, "When did you change your mind?"


Jace sighed, annoyed. He stayed.


"You led the Panthers. You started life down that trail where it's end is
either underneath our feet or where my brother stands. You and I both know that.
So I'm asking…when did you change your mind?"


"What are you talking about?" He frowned, but he stayed. I felt him stay.


"You made a decision somewhere to end here, where we're standing. Not with a
tombstone, but alive and free. When did you decide that you wanted to be free?
My brother isn't alive. Where'd you leave him behind?"


"Why do you care? You're a freak."


Funny. Krein had called me the same. I still didn't care.


"Just tell me." I insisted, quietly. "Please."


Jace stood there. The man who'd brought two empires to their knees. A ghost,
he blended with the shadows, perfectly in alignment.


"Why do you care?" He asked simply. Genuinely.


"I…I have to know. I don't know why, I just…it brought me here to ask you
this question." I had spoken the truth in the beginning, but now I kept
stalling. We both knew that I hadn't uttered the real reason for why I stood
before him. And to tell the truth, I think I was afraid to admit it to
myself.


He frowned again, but replied, hesitantly, "I was in a meeting and one of the
other guys needed to decide something, it was about his son. His family. He was
supposed…he was supposed to fight for his family's life, but he didn't. He
rammed his dick into a girl's ass instead. I rethought my life then. Is that
what you wanted?"


Did I?


"You loved her."


Jace frowned, sharply this time. He held his tongue.


"You loved her and you loved your brother. I'm sure you love your father,
but…you gave them all up."


Jace's jaw firmed and I saw a muscle clench.


"This conversation is done." He spat out and brushed past.


I was right. He walked as a ghost too. It was a glide and I knew why he'd
gone untouched and unstoppable for so many years.


I turned and murmured, "I've talked to her. I saw Taryn."


Jace stopped, but he didn't turn. I hadn't expected him to. It was a game
between us and it was an old ritual game of who had the power. We both knew he
was more powerful, but I armed myself with information that held power over him.
I did as such when I told him this, but he didn't look back. He still didn't
give me the power that lay inside of him.


Something flickered inside of me when I saw that her name stopped him. A
twinge that was not of comfort.


"She told me about you."


He turned at that and said clearly, "You're lying and we both know it."


He was right. She hadn't shared about him, but I had known anyway.


I stepped forward. "Not with words, but I saw you in her. You're still with
her."


"If Taryn thinks about anyone, trust me—it's not me. It'd be Brian. She loved
him."


"She loved both of you." As I said before, it was evident to everyone, but
the three involved. "But she knew Brian. She got that experience. She didn't get
that experience with you. That's what haunts her."


Jace frowned and stared at me. Again. He hadn't stopped, even with his back
turned to me.


"Are you seriously Krein's little sister?" He mused to himself. "Maya."


"I'm a lot more than you think."


"I don't doubt that." He remarked and then asked, "What do you want?"


It was the same question that my brother had asked me. Not the same words,
but the same intent. Everything else immediately shifted and we talked one to
one. No facades, no games, just truth to truth.


And my truth…. "I don't know. I just know that you can't walk away from me
until…until something happens."


That confounded him. I saw that immediately. He didn't move, but I felt him
shift a step back.


"I put your brother in prison."


We both knew that. That wasn't his question.


I said calmly, "No. My brother put himself there. You're the one who stopped
him."


He shifted again, further back. His body still hadn't moved, but I felt
it.


"I told you. I am not here for vengeance."


"But you have an agenda."


"Yes. I do." I just didn't know what it was. "I just don't know what it
is."


All his life, Jace worked and lived with people whose vendettas and agendas
were always there, always known, and their goal was self-indulgence. Those
people stepped over whoever was blocking them, laying at their feet, if it meant
their life was better in some sense. People got hurt. It was human nature, but
it was the negative human nature that was evident in those people.


He was surrounded by those people, who only felt and saw their own
self-interest.


Some had evolved above that. I didn't think that Jace had met those people,
even though he was one himself.


I didn't think he knew that or that people like him existed.


I knew he wouldn't believe me. He would never believe that my agenda was
possibly not self-interest or that I was clueless.


People lied. That's what Jace knew and that was a certainty that his life
revolved around.


"I'm leaving." He told me, but I already felt it's approach.


"Yes."


His eyebrows raised and he asked, "What do you want from me?" It was the
bottom-line question that kept him there, but it wasn't the real reason he
stayed.


He didn't know. I saw that in him.


He stayed because of a loyalty to someone he once called 'best friend.' I was
the little sister. Age-old tradition deems that the little sister is cared for,
protected when the brother is not present.


That was why he remained, though this string was invisible.


"I already told you." I stepped closer, now just before him. The cold air
neglected body-warmth. If the wind had not been between us, I would've felt his
heat.


"I don't know." I finished, truthfully. He held my eyes and I knew he read
the truth because the distance had stopped. I no longer pushed and he no longer
retreated.


"I don't have time for this." He shook his head.


And as it turned out, neither of us did.


A gunshot ripped through the air and before I completely realized it, Jace
had thrown himself above me on the ground.


His gun was drawn and he'd returned the shot twice before silence befell us.
Us and the trees.


He cursed and asked savagely, "Who knew you were coming out here?"


Oscar. Ben. Lily. And no one.


"Someone followed you." Jace threw himself up and grabbed my hand. He pulled
me behind and before I could glance behind us, he whipped us through the woods
and out the backdoor as the trees silently loomed above and watched below.


They liked this creature. They wished to help Jace and I would've imagined
they swept their branches in front of whoever took chase.


Or at least—I would've if I believed in sorts like that.