Page 4 of The Children of Eve (Charlie Parker #22)

CHAPTER IV

With the smell of salt in the air and the road through the marshes empty once more, the ghost of the girl stood before the house. She was present yet unsubstantial; the mist surrounding her had more solidity than she. The lamp in the window flickered beneath her gaze. It always shone in the night, even when her father was away from the house, because he kept it on a dark-activated timer. It burned, she knew, for her, so that she might know she was not forgotten.

However, she was aware that perhaps he thought of her less often now than in the past, and not only because she had been dead so long; more than two decades, even as it felt like less to her, time passing differently in the place where she waited, if it really passed at all. Sometimes, it seemed as though only days had elapsed since she arrived at the lakeshore, there to sit on a promontory between worlds, watching as the dead immersed themselves in the water, wading deeper and deeper before being lost to the great sea. At first, she tried to keep count of them, but they were too many and too similar; different, yet all the same. Some noticed her, but only momentarily, curiosity being for the living, the dead having no use for it.

She had learned not to wander beyond the environs of the water. Hills bordered it, and forests, but these were not uninhabited. They were largely the abode of the irretrievably lost: the angry, the insane, or those who, because of their pain, were unable or unwilling to surrender themselves to what lay beyond. A few, she thought, were somewhat like her—watching, waiting—but unlike her, they did not move between worlds. She believed they might be content to let her do it for them, so she became their agent, their intelligencer. Now and again, she caught some of them regarding her from the shadows, even if they did not approach. Those ones were always children. She felt they were frightened of her, even as they also desired what she desired: revenge.

And she would think to herself: You have no reason to fear me. That’s for another.

SHE ENTERED THE HOUSE, occupying its spaces, her fingers passing over chairs, books, scattered possessions, without disturbing even a single speck of dust. She paused by a photograph of herself with her father and mother, when all three of them were unruined. Mother and child had died together, leaving the father behind. The girl no longer knew where her mother was. She had hidden herself away: a disunited being, unpredictable, so that even her daughter was wary of her. But she had been beautiful once, as the picture showed. The girl could remember being held by her, read to, loved. No more. All gone.

On a shelf nearby stood another series of photographs, these of her father with his other daughter: Sam, the dead girl’s half sister. In only one were they joined by Sam’s mother, Rachel. There were, the girl noted with something like amusement, more pictures of the dog, Walter, who had left this house with Rachel and Sam to go and live with Rachel’s parents in Vermont. Walter was now gone from the world. Sam had been aware that he was dying, but she was unable to prepare herself because she had not yet been exposed to mortality on an intimate, personal level. She still had her parents and grandparents and had not lost any friends to death. She had been fortunate, but that luck lasted for no one. The blow, when it came, would hit hard. That was the first lesson death taught. The second was that so many of the losses to follow would hit even harder.

The dog had been with Sam since early childhood, and she was a teenager now, if not for much longer. When the dog was finally put to sleep, her childhood was laid to rest alongside him, and the bond between the girl and Sam had frayed still further. They had been close when they were younger, the dead girl shadowing the living, whispering to her, sharing some (though not all) of what she knew. But as Sam entered adolescence, the girl could not connect with her as before. The girl was both trapped in childhood and strangely ageless, but Sam was neither. Part of their growing estrangement, the girl understood, was a consequence of that awareness of difference, but she felt it more acutely than Sam because the latter was progressing toward an adulthood that had been denied the former. Sometimes, the girl struggled to contain her envy at the experiences Sam had already enjoyed and those yet to come, and her rage at the unfairness of it all.

She had watched from the dark as Sam received her first kiss from a boy; had stood amid daffodils as Sam’s grandfather taught her how to fish for bass; and had crouched by the bathtub as Sam realized she was having her first period, its coming already prepared for by her practical mother but its arrival nonetheless greeted with a combination of embarrassment, discomfort, and pride. After every such event, the dead girl had retreated to her sentinel post by the water, where she briefly contemplated joining the ranks of the dead and embracing unknowing. It had taken all her resolve to wait for the urge to pass, aided by the glimpses of herself that she caught in mirrors and glass when she traveled to the other side: a bloody, ravaged creature, eyeless but not blind. The damage reminded her of her purpose and made her patient once more.

From above came the sound of bedsprings protesting and the coughing of a woman: Sharon Macy, who was sharing her father’s bed that night, as she did once or twice each week. The girl had seen them becoming ever closer, ever more intimate. They shared secrets, whispering them to each other when the world was quiet; softly, body to body, though the girl could hear, when she chose to listen. Her father even spoke of her to the woman, which concerned her. It was unwise. But as with Sam and her progress toward womanhood, the girl was conscious of other emotions beyond fear of the harm that might result from her father’s sharing of confidences with his lover: jealousy, a sense of betrayal—and sadness.

He no longer thinks of me as often. His pain is less intense.

The girl had never felt more alone.