Ghost Layer (The Ghost Seer Series Book 2) (17 page)

“If a ghost needs Clare’s help, he’s already been here a long time and can wait a little longer,” Zach said.

She!
Enzo corrected again.
At the train station at the end of the street!

Clare’s gaze met Zach’s. “The third documented ghost of Curly Wolf, the brunette lady—”

“In black silk,” Zach ended.

With another good breath—she could breathe easier now she’d become more accustomed to the heavy atmospheric pressure in the town—Clare said, “Let’s go then.” She started walking a little more quickly. The dirt road was smooth, with no fake wagon ruts . . . or tufts of grass that might grow in a real abandoned town. Mr. Laurentine kept the street grated.

“Are the ghosts here a threat to Clare?” Zach stared at the trotting Enzo.

The ghost dog whirled, then loped back toward them, his eyes serious.
It IS safe. None of the shades or ghosts will bother Clare. They are old and familiar with this place and fine with being here and not grumpy or scary . . . but the lady is very, very sad. She cries and cries. You need to help her, Clare.

“Uh-huh,” Clare said, wondering how much “need to help her” would cost her in terms of strength, energy, and respect.
I’ll help,
she said mentally to Enzo. She’d been told that if she didn’t accept her gift, she’d die. Well, she’d accepted it.

If she didn’t use her gift, help ghosts, she’d go mad. And she believed that, too. It wasn’t as if any of them—including Enzo and the Other—would go away if she ignored them. More likely they’d turn into incessant screaming banshees in her mind. Even so, the more she got to know the people the ghosts had been, the more she felt she was helping them in her new vocation. That was important, and would comfort her.

Enzo stopped abruptly, sat and tilted his furrowed head, then shook it.
You need to talk to the little boy first
, Enzo said.
Her son.

“The boy in the hotel is the son of the lady in black silk?” Clare asked.

An exclamation came from Mr. Laurentine. “That makes sense. And now we have another nugget of information that we can use for research for my town.” From the corner of her eyes, Clare could see him beaming and rubbing his hands.

Everyone clumped around her. Even Rossi and Desiree seemed a little distracted from their jobs.

Clare looked up at the window of the hotel. Sure enough, a solemn boy stared at her. She waved, and his face lit with joy and he waved back and jumped up and down.

Now he knows that you can help him. He hopes you can take him to his mother. He’s waiting for his mother
, Enzo said.

“He’s waiting for his mother,” Clare repeated aloud. “And she’s waiting for him.”

“Sad,” murmured Desiree.

Heading toward the hotel, Clare thought she could hear an excited child’s noises, perhaps words.

Zach said, “The little boy in the hotel and the lady in black silk are child and mother. The boy’s ghost can’t leave the hotel to find his mother, just down the street at the narrow gauge train station?”

His father was very strict
, Enzo said.
She can’t move
, Enzo said.
She promised her husband she would not move.
The dog snorted.
He is long gone. He left them.

Clare repeated the information aloud.

Enzo lifted dark and depthless eyes to Clare, with more than a hint of the Other looking out, and his mental voice deepened as that being spoke to Clare.
You have already learned that some apparitions are limited to a special location and some roam free. The mother is also trapped, but she will be easier to free than the child. It would be best if you brought her here after you speak with the boy.

She gulped and nodded, and the ankle of her hiking boot hit the edge of the boardwalk and she understood she’d lost track of reality, which was so not good. Her vision had faded to grays and white and black with a hint of sepia.

But she sensed Zach on her right and Rossi on her left, both watchful. Clare shifted her weight to her back leg, moved the other foot forward to feel the height of the walk . . . not too tall here, four inches. She blinked as the colorful blur of Desiree smoothly slid in front of her and opened one of the double doors of the hotel and went in first. Clare and Zach followed.

Zach stopped Clare with a hand on her arm at the bottom of the narrow stairs. “The building is sound?” he asked Mr. Laurentine. “And the steps?”

“Everything has been restored,” the man affirmed.

With concentration, Clare cleared her sight enough that her gaze met Zach’s serious green-blue eyes. He nodded at her, scanned the area again, then fixed on her. “Go on up,” he said.

Soft footsteps indicated that Desiree had preceded Clare once again.

With only a quick glance around at the polished wooden floor, an old patterned carpet still with plenty of use left in it, and paint a color of green that might be appropriate to the period but that Clare wouldn’t have in her own house, she moved to the stairway and put her hand on the simply carved wooden rail.

From above, Desiree called, “I looked at the steps. They’re a little dusty, haven’t been polished lately, but you’re safe. I don’t know what room the ghost is in.”

Yet Clare could already feel the chill of the child’s shade. She climbed the steps and met Desiree in the upper corridor.

As with most buildings, the hallway was small. People were smaller then, and materials were at a premium. Desiree stood with hands on her hips and looked down the hall at all the open doors on each side. “It’s a hotel,” she said, frowning. “The doors should be shut for privacy.”

“It’s a display piece,” Clare reminded her.

“Which room?”

The little boy came to the first door on the left, his expression hopeful. He wore pants with suspenders, a linen shirt, and a small billed cap. The style of his clothes placed him in the late 1880s.

Enzo materialized next to the child and the boy petted him.

I am stuck
, the boy said.

CLARE RESPONDED TELEPATHICALLY
to the ghost.
I can see that. Your mother is the lady in black silk?
she asked.

The boy worried his lower lip.
She wears pretty clothes. I can hear her crying, but I can’t go to her and she won’t come to me! I’m stuck. WE’RE stuck.

Enzo licked the boy’s hand. Clare took a sip of water.
I can . . . get you unstuck.

He said you could.
The child petted Enzo.

“Are you talking to them?” Mr. Laurentine asked. “Not much to watch, is she?” he muttered.

Clare jumped. “Can you please not distract me?”

“What’s his name?” asked Mr. Laurentine.

That was a good question.

My name is Samuel Graw.
The child apparition made a little bow.

“Samuel Graw,” Clare repeated.

“Make a note of that, Clare,” Mr. Laurentine ordered.

If she sent Samuel and his mother on, Clare would experience a few of their memories, certainly know their names, and wouldn’t forget. She took a deep breath and sloughed off the irritation of Dennis Laurentine’s comment. Bracing herself, she walked forward and offered her hand to Samuel. “I am Clare Cermak.”

He put his small and frigid hand in hers and she felt his fingers and emotions rush from him to her . . . and she understood that this was not just a remnant of a person, but a fully trapped spirit. She shuddered and he dropped her hand, but she still felt the sorrow, a deep yearning, and patience beyond what she’d ever experienced. The being who’d been Samuel had grown after his death.

Do other ghosts visit you?
Clare asked. Maybe the boy would have information on J. Dawson, though the prospector had died about two decades before Samuel.

No. I see people and spirits but no one has come except for the doggie.

I will be back with your mother shortly
, she promised.

His eyes shone with a glimmer of dampness and unearthly light.

It is hard to wait.
The small voice was back.
But I can.

“You are a strong and determined spirit. I won’t be long,” Clare said aloud, praising him for all to hear.

“Huh,” said Rossi.

Zach put his hand on her shoulder, squeezed a bit, and stared at the ghost, no doubt seeing the boy due to her connection. “Cute kid,” he said.

The boy grinned and ducked his head.
I’ll watch at the window. Soon my mother will come. Now I knowww
, and that sound seemed to echo in the room. Rossi shivered.

Enzo barked and ran into the room near the window.
I will wait with you, so you are not alone, and can’t fear you’ll be left behind again. It is very hard to be left behind. Go get his mama, Clare.

“We’re off to the train station and the lady in black silk, then,” Zach stated to all the others who’d stayed in the hallway.

“What happened in there?” asked Baxter Hawburton. The rancher was the closest to the top of the stairs.

“I met Samuel,” Clare said and hurried past him and down the steps. “As I said before, he is the son of the lady in black silk at the train station.”

“Samuel. What was the kid’s last name again?” Mr. Hawburton followed her down the stairs, then she heard Zach and his cane and, later, Mr. Laurentine. Rossi’s and Desiree’s steps were too light for her ears to catch.

Clare reminded herself that Mr. Hawburton was local. “Graw. Samuel Graw.”

Nodding, Mr. Hawburton opened the door for her, took her elbow as they left the boardwalk for the middle of the street. “I think there’re a couple of Graws buried in the Curly Wolf Cemetery.”

When they went outside, from the cool shadows into the sun, a touch of nausea whirled in her stomach and her breath came raggedly, and Clare was glad of the rancher’s steady hand.

She swallowed hard. She had a job to do.

The train station was across the street at the far end of the town, across from the stables. Again Clare went to the middle of the street. There she stopped and looked up at the hotel. Sam grinned and waved to her, his other arm draped around Enzo, who panted cheerfully with his tongue out.

Zach caught her hand and set a pace that was faster than she’d anticipated from him, and in a couple of minutes they were all in the station. A shadowy woman in a beautiful watered silk dress and bonnet rose from a bench holding out her hands in a pleading gesture.
Help me. The dog spirit said you could. You could see me and feel me AND HELP ME FIND MY SON!

“That’s right,” Clare said, answering aloud. Rossi and Desiree had kept up, and Zach, of course, was staring at the phantom. She added silently,
Mrs. Graw?

Yes, yes, I am Mrs. Graw!
Silvery, insubstantial tears ran down her face. She wrung her hands.
I have forgotten so, so much.
She lifted her face imploringly.
But I haven’t forgotten that I cannot pass on before I have my son, my Sammy.

Clare stepped away from Zach, nodded to him, then met the gazes of Rossi and Desiree in turn. “I’m going to hold Mrs. Graw’s hand and run as fast as I can to the hotel.” It would be better if the spirit took her hands. If Clare initiated contact with a ghost, the chill of the connection became freezing, at least twice as bad as when a ghost touched her. And she
had
to walk into them, or take them into her for them to transition. That process was one of the costs of her gift.

After getting a nod from Rossi and Desiree and a frown from Zach, Clare offered her hand to the nearly transparent Mrs. Graw.
Take my hand and hold on tight. I will lead you to your son.

More tears.
I’ve tried and tried to leave this benighted place. I haven’t been able to move past the door. And I know my Sammy needs me!

“You can leave with me,” Clare said out loud to give the words more force, the force of a prayer, the force of a woman who called on her gift and it
would
help her do what needed to be done, rules or no rules.

THANK YOU!
The apparition grabbed Clare’s fingers tightly in a frost-cold grip. “We’re going fast,” Clare said to the living. Mentally she projected,
Look at me, Mrs. Graw. Focus on me. You are coming with me and nothing will stop you. Nothing CAN stop you.

Nothing can stop me. I am going to my son. You are taking me to my Sammy!

That’s right, and we are running. Run with me.
Clare sucked in a couple of deep breaths and took off, shooting to the door and . . . snagging.
Look at me.
She stared at the spirit woman, who gazed back. Clare grabbed the woman’s other hand and knew that was right. Her fingers went numb immediately, but she
yanked
, and she and Mrs. Graw were through whatever barrier had stopped the woman before. Clare dropped the hand she’d clasped, and ran. It was more like a jog than running flat out, the way she’d imagined, and she didn’t question how the ghost kept up with her, running or floating or what.

Clare’s footsteps pounded on the boardwalk now, the sound reassuring her that the bright yellow of the sun that had disappeared in a world of gray shadows was just beyond, in real life. The sun was out there somewhere, ready to beam on her with warmth when she finished what she had to do.

She, they, ran. Slower than she wanted. They passed the store that had once been Mr. Hawburton’s ancestor’s. It looked light gray with dark gray trim. Clare’s teeth began to chatter and she pressed on . . . A blur shot by and she saw Desiree holding the door to the hotel open. Clare’s fingers tightened—she hoped—on Mrs. Graw’s hand. They shot in, and panting, Clare ran up the stairs. She knew she wasn’t alone because the ghost impinged on her right side, the cold of the once-woman freezing even through Clare’s clothes.

Sending the mother and son on would test Clare. She’d never been so cold to start with. She clenched her jaw. She
would
do this.

At the top of the steps, Clare heard Sammy shriek,
MAMA!
The cold presence slipped from her hand and from along her side.

Samuel! My Sammy boy!
the woman cried.

Clare stepped slowly to the door, which beamed white light, gathering her irregular breath and her strength, trying to focus on the visible dimensions—contemporary and the gray ghost dimension. She’d had a little practice and no doubt would become an expert eventually, but for now it was still tricky.

Desiree moved from the top of the stairs into the narrow hall, a quizzical look on her face. Her shoulders wiggled a bit and she frowned. “There are vibrations here, and energy, but I can’t see or hear anything. Very disconcerting.”

“I’m staying down here,” Rossi said from the landing halfway up the stairs. “If you go in the room, Clare, stay away from the windows.”

She blinked. There wasn’t a tall enough building opposite the hotel for a person to shoot from . . . then she recalled Zach and his twenty-four hundred feet. Mr. Laurentine’s house was above the town, and parallel to it, and perhaps you could see the second-story hotel window from the house or even the grounds.

Or the rifle shot that morning could have been completely unrelated to her, could have been a hunter or a rancher scaring away something . . . or due to any of a half-dozen things Clare couldn’t imagine.

“Clare? Stay away from the window.” Rossi sounded impatient, and pulled her back to the moment.

“I will.”

Enzo gamboled around her, saying,
Clare, you are back, and with the mother’s ghost! The Other didn’t know if you were strong enough to do that! Yay, yay, yay!

“So it was a test?”

I knew you could do it
, Enzo said smugly as he chased his tail just beyond the threshold of the open room door.

Thank you.

Enzo sat.
You have to help them now, Clare. They have been here too long and are too used to this existence. They were good people.

Clare swallowed hard.

Mrs. Cermak, we are ready!
a female voice trilled in Clare’s mind. She paused a little, then figured out that to Mrs. Graw, a woman of Clare’s age was likely married.

She took another couple of steps toward the door, saw the woman holding the boy . . . who was probably too big for her to carry, but neither of them minded that, and they were, after all, insubstantial.

The boy was grinning, the woman crying. Clare thought this time she wept with joy and smiled herself until she felt the nudge in the backside from a cold and pointy muzzle.
Come ON, Clare, it’s time to move them on. The quicker the better
, Enzo said.

She stood stubbornly.
You’re always dropping hints like that and never explaining them. Why is it better?

It just IS. Every minute a ghost stays, there is a chance for it to turn bad.

Bad?

Enzo goosed her again and she gave a little yelp and moved into the hotel room, sidled back into a far corner away from the window.

Desiree moved into the room and the opposite corner. She said, “Are you going to do your ghost laying thing now? Can I watch?”

Clare sighed. “Yes, I’m going to send Mrs. Graw and Sammy on. Yes, you can watch, but I don’t know that you’ll see anything.” Zach hadn’t told her what he’d seen when she’d helped her first major client transition.

Looking at Mrs. Graw, she said,
One thing first. Do you know a man, or a ghost, called J. Dawson Hidgepath?

Mrs. Graw shook her head and said,
No.

So Clare straightened her shoulders and considered logistics. Both apparitions wore expectant expressions, and Clare didn’t think she should send one on, then the other. That didn’t seem right according to some inner sense. And now that she thought about it, there
did
seem to be an inner pressure building within her that these two needed to go—wherever they went. Discovering where the ghosts went was absolutely the last of Clare’s priorities. Discovering how to make their transition easier on them, and her, was the first.

She shook out her body and loosened her muscles, aware Desiree scrutinized her. Clare took another swallow of water from the despised pink bottle, a bright, modern color that seemed so wrong in these surroundings. She shrugged the thought off, hooked the bottle to her belt loop again, and said, “I think you should put Sammy down, Mrs. Graw, and just hold his hand,” Clare stated so Desiree could listen.

You won’t separate me from him again!

“No. I won’t separate you,” Clare said, just as Sammy wrapped his arms around his mother’s legs and said,
No, the nice lady won’t make us go on alone.

That had to be a factor as to why both ghosts had stayed. Some people didn’t want to die alone, Clare knew, and perhaps the reverse was true. Some people liked to die and transition alone. Were there ghosts around because they’d died with a mass of people? Clare didn’t like thinking of mass deaths . . . and the ghosts a horrific event could throw.

But now the Graws stood closely side by side, Sammy leaning against his mother, and her hand around his shoulder and gripping it. No, the woman wouldn’t let go of her son easily, nor the son his mother. Clare wondered briefly about the husband in the equation, if he had found himself out of the circle of their love, or if they loved each other more because he’d pushed them out of his affections.