A Gust of Ghosts
Authors: Suzanne Harper
UZANNE
H
ARPER
DEDICATION
For Cameron Belgrave
“W
ill, get up off that grave
this instant
!” Mrs. Malone hissed.
“I would if I could,” Will said, each word as slow and measured as if he were in a trance. “But ⦠I ⦠just ⦠can't.” To demonstrate, he lifted one limp hand, then let it drop heavily to the ground.
Poppy gave her twin brother a jaded look from the spot, two headstones over, where she was positioning a camera tripod. He was lying neatly on his back with a gravestone looming behind his head like a granite headboard. His eyes were closed, his arms folded across his chest, and his toes pointed to the sky.
“The vibrations are too powerful,” he went on dreamily. “The atmosphere too fraught, the night too filled with a mysterious etherâ”
“And you feel like taking a nap while the rest of us work,” Poppy said, wiping off her face with her sleeve. Even though it was almost midnight, it was still warm in the cemetery. Since moving to Austin a month ago, the Malones had learned that summer days in Texas never cooled off, even after the sun went down. But Poppy was sure she wouldn't feel quite so hot and sweaty if
she
were stretched out on a grave plot. Instead, she was climbing trees to place camera traps in the branches and crawling around on the ground, setting up motion sensors next to tombs. “Which means pretty soon you'll start snoring, and any audio evidence we get will be ruined.”
Will smiled but didn't open his eyes. “I can feel the spirits around me,” he murmured. “They are approaching.... Now they are close to us ⦠very close....”
“Oh, give me a break,” muttered Franny. Their older sister was slouched on a bench under a nearby cypress tree. Cypresses are gloomy trees in general, and this one, with its drooping branches and green-black needles, was gloomier than most. That, Poppy knew, was why Franny had decided to sit under it; she had chosen a tree to match her mood in the same way that she would choose a piece of clothing.
“The only scary things out here in this
graveyard
in the middle of
nowhere
in the middle of the
night
,” Franny went on, “are the bugs.” She slapped her arm irritably.
Mrs. Malone held up a magnetometer and peered at the dial, moonlight glinting off her glasses. “Dear, you know you shouldn't develop a theory before you have all the facts,” she said. “After all, dozens of eyewitnesses have reported unearthly phenomena at this cemetery over the years. We, on the other hand, have only just arrived. The whole night lies before us! Who knows when or how we might contact the World Beyond? If we're very lucky, we may even establish communication with a spirit tonight!”
From the shadows came the sound of a heavy sigh and another slap. “Who cares about spirits?” Franny muttered. “I'll be lucky to have any blood left after tonight, thanks to these mosquitoes.”
“Maybe you could pretend they're vampires,” suggested Poppy with a hint of mischief. (Franny dreamed of someday meeting a vampire, which she seemed to think would look like the cutest member of her favorite boy band. Nothing that the rest of the family said could put this notion out of her mind.) “Or put on some repellent.”
“And smell like bug spray?” Franny slapped at her leg. “No, thank you.”
“Lucille, do you have the extra flash drive?” Mr. Malone called out. He was crouched beside a granite tomb, surrounded by a tangle of equipment. “I know I put one in the equipment case, but I can't find it.”
He continued rooting through a battered black case. Mr. and Mrs. Malone had carried the case with them for years as they traveled the world searching for evidence of the supernatural. It had a long scratch on one side that Mr. Malone insisted had been made by a werewolf. The handle had been ripped and torn (the result, Mrs. Malone always claimed, of a vicious attack by a windigo) and was now held together with duct tape. There was a deep dent in one side, a souvenir, both Mr. and Mrs. Malone declared, of the time they were caught in a shower of strangely glowing meteorites and held the case over their heads to protect themselves.
“Maybe we left it in the car,” said Mrs. Malone.
“Impossible,” replied Mr. Malone. “I always put it in this little pocket on the rightâ”
He was interrupted by a handful of dirt hitting the back of his head.
“What theâ” Mr. Malone turned to see five-year-old Rolly industriously digging a hole. Rolly approached this activity the way he approached his life, with single-minded intensity and manic focus that did not include any consideration for others, even if they were standing in the path of incoming dirt.
“Rolly!” Mr. Malone shouted. “What do you think you'reâ?”
More dirt hit him square in the face.
“â
doing
?” he spluttered.
“Digging,” Rolly said without glancing up.
“You are a master of stating the obvious,” Mr. Malone said, spitting out a small pebble. “Let me rephrase my question.
Why
are you digging?”
Rolly's head swiveled around. He leveled his most baleful stare at Mr. Malone. “I'm
pretending
,” he said, his voice dark with meaning. “I'm pretending to be a
dog
.”
Poppy rolled her eyes. Will groaned. A theatrical sigh wafted from under the cypress tree.
“Now, Rolly, please be reasonable,” began Mrs. Malone, casting a worried look at Mr. Malone, who was scowling down at his younger son as he wiped off his face with a handkerchief.
“For. The. Last. Time.” Mr. Malone clipped off each word as if he were doing his best not to start shouting. “We are not getting a dog that will chew our furniture, pee on our rugs, and eat us out of house and home.”
Rolly growled.
“Stop that snarling,” said Mr. Malone. “The discussion is closed.”
The growling grew louder.
“Rolly, dear, perhaps you'd like another pet,” said Mrs. Malone, rather desperately. “Now, goldfish are quite nice. It's so soothing to watch them swim around their bowl, don't you think?”
Rolly gave a small but expressive bark that indicated, quite clearly, what he thought of goldfish.
“And don't imagine that this canine impersonation of yours will make me change my mind,” Mr. Malone said. “I have said No Dog and that's final.”
Rolly snapped his teeth a few times, cast one last black look at Mr. Malone, then went back to his digging. As he threw another scoop of dirt over his shoulder (which Mr. Malone deftly sidestepped), there was a flash of moonlight on silver.
Mrs. Malone gasped. “Rolly! My great-aunt Maude gave me that!”
Rolly ignored this and kept digging.
“Emerson!” Mrs. Malone turned to Mr. Malone. “He's excavating with my gravy ladle!”
But Mr. Malone had found the flash drive hidden under a copy of
Arcane Mysteries Magazine
and was feeling more cheerful.
“Oh, let him use it,” he said with a careless wave of his hand. “We never do.”
“But it was a
wedding present
,” Mrs. Malone said.
“Yes, and a completely idiotic one,” said Mr. Malone. “Of course, everyone in your family has always been impractical.”
Mrs. Malone stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. “I don't know why you say that,” she said. “I think they're quite sensible, actually.”
“As I recall, we told everyone that we were going to spend our honeymoon tracking Mokele-mbembe through the Congo,” said Mr. Malone. “How did your great-aunt imagine gravy would fit into that plan?”
Mrs. Malone gave him a cool look. “I'll admit it wasn't the most useful gift for starting out my married lifeâ”
“The only thing more ridiculous would have been a set of embroidered tea towels,” said Mr. Malone, “which, as I recall, is what your
sister
gave us.”
Mrs. Malone took a deep breath, her usual remedy when she felt she was about to lose her temper. “She thought they would make our base camp feel homier. And the embroidery was charming.”
“Tea towels!” Mr. Malone said, chuckling and shaking his head. “A gravy ladle! It's hard to believe that you grew up in that family, Lucilleâ”
“Now, listen here,” Mrs. Malone began dangerously.
“Considering how sensible, intelligent, and levelheaded you turned out to be,” he finished.
“Well,
really
, Emerson ⦔ Mrs. Malone's expression shifted from pleasure to annoyance and back again. “That's very nice ⦠but I wish you wouldn't talk about my family like that ⦠although I must admit they
can
be trying ⦠but still, it's not kind to actually
say
so....”
She stopped, flustered, then took another deep breath and went back to the issue at hand. “At any rate,” she said. “I don't think Rolly should use my gravy ladle as a shovel. In addition to the sentimental value, it happens to be solid sterlingâ”
“
And
it's being used to dig up a grave,” said Poppy. “In case you haven't noticed.”