Darkest Journey. Heather Graham
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for their sins—lie, where many a Yankee was hidden in the earth, where the most evil among us rest uneasily for all eternity. But you, should you survive the hours ahead, will rise triumphant, a Cherub for all time,” Nancy said dramatically.
Charlie’s blindfold was slipping; from where she lay she could just see Nancy’s arms upstretched to the night sky. She was wearing her cheerleading uniform, which seemed to be a disservice to the entire school at that moment.
Nancy’s arms dropped, and she turned, presumably to face the others. “Let’s get the hell out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
“Damn you all!” Charlie swore. “Let me up! I don’t want to be one of you stupid people.”
Her words did no good. Laughing, the group hurriedly left, heading back to Nancy’s car and whatever vehicle Todd and the others had come in.
She screamed for a few minutes more—to no avail. Still, it made her feel better, and she realized she was at least ridding herself of the blindfold. It was just a piece of white cotton, probably someone’s ripped-up shirt.
She fell silent and worked harder at the blindfold. Eventually she dislodged it by rubbing her head back and forth against the headstone she was bound to. It finally came unknotted and fell down by her side. She laughed bitterly. Nancy and her crew weren’t even capable of tying a decent knot.
The boys were, though. She couldn’t dislodge the ropes around her wrists and ankles, which were secured tightly against the tombstone.
She let out a sigh, reminding herself that she wasn’t afraid of a graveyard. Even an unhallowed one. Her father had brought her here many times and told her of the injustices that had been perpetrated over the years. The townspeople had strung up an innocent slave instead of admitting to the guilt of a rich white man who had raped and strangled a young woman in the 1830s. His grave was unmarked. A horse thief—who was admittedly guilty but hadn’t killed anyone—was strung up in 1860. Apparently horse theft had been a major crime back then, since horses were needed for the militia units forming in the lead-up to the Civil War.
Charlie closed her eyes for a minute. She could hear the river—the mighty Mississippi—churning far below the bluff. She could hear tree branches swaying, the leaves rustling. She opened her eyes. Even though this was unhallowed ground, loved ones of those long gone had erected stones and monuments to mark their graves. A broken-winged angel looked mournfully down at her from a pedestal. Tombs and all manner of funerary art graced the area, some of it half-hidden by overgrown grass and shrubbery.
Time passed as she continued to fight with the ropes that bound her. She cursed out loud and then quietly to herself. She prayed that Cathy—who was truly terrified of water—was going to be all right.
Then she heard the sobbing.
“Hey!” she called out.
There was no reply. She inhaled, then let her breath out in a rush.
Yes, her family often saw ghosts or just felt their invisible presence. She’d known that Uncle Jessup had come to his own funeral; she’d seen him stroking her mother’s hair, as if trying to assure her that he was all right.
She wasn’t at all sure she was ready to see a ghost tonight, though, not while she was tied to a tombstone. Especially not here on unhallowed ground. Some of the people buried had been truly evil. There was even rumor that a vicious voodoo queen—a woman who had poisoned a number of people—had been brought out here, hanged and left to rot, then buried with no marker. It might only be a tale meant to scare away couples who liked to come to the cemetery and drink among the old tombstones, maybe do drugs or have sex...whatever.
She wished she could see her watch. She felt as if she’d already been there for hours.
More likely it had only been thirty minutes or so. Maybe she had imagined the sobbing.
No, she hadn’t.
Because the sound came again. She blinked hard. A young woman seemed to be materializing right in front of her, just to the left by the base of an old moss-draped oak tree. The woman’s hair was swept up, and she was wearing a pretty blue gown. For a moment Charlie thought that she had come from a different era in history, but then she realized that the blue dress was a beautiful and entirely contemporary formal gown. The woman bent down; she looked like she was trying to pick something up.
But she couldn’t. Whatever it was, it slipped through her ethereal fingers.
The woman seemed to sink against the tree and down to the ground.
And then she disappeared.
Charlie watched for a moment, then hung her own head.
Time was passing. Someone would come for her.
She looked up and blinked.
A Confederate soldier was walking toward her. He wore a frock coat lined in a yellow-buff color.
Cavalry. And an officer. She couldn’t be her father’s daughter and not know that.
He wore a handsome plumed hat, and his sword was encased in a sheath belted around his hips.
She closed her eyes, wondering what a Southern soldier had done to end up buried out here.
Please, please go away, she thought. Because she was afraid. The air here on top of the bluff was growing chilly in the dark, and she still felt as if she could hear—in her head, at least—the soft sound of sobbing.
The cavalryman was still walking toward her.
Screw the damned club. What an idiot she’d been.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to help you.”
At first she thought it was the ghostly Confederate who had spoken. But it wasn’t. It was someone made of flesh and blood, someone real, and that realization startled her so badly that she let out a horrified scream.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he protested, stepping closer and starting to work at the ropes that bound her. “It’s all right. I’m Ethan Delaney. I’m here to help you.”
She blinked. Ethan Delaney. She knew him, even if she didn’t know him well. His father was a teacher and had recently taken a job at a music school in New Orleans. His mother taught piano. Ethan had graduated soon after she’d gotten to high school; he was three years her senior. She’d really only seen him from afar. When she’d been about eight or nine, he’d gotten stuck babysitting for her and some other kids because their parents were all friends.
What she knew about Ethan—what everyone knew about him—was that he was considered special, but not in a bad way. In a good way, in fact. He’d excelled at sports and qualified for scholarships at a bunch of schools. He’d ridden a motorcycle—when he hadn’t been riding around on Devil, his dad’s big buckskin quarter horse. People nodded when they heard his name and said things like That boy’s gonna make something of himself.
He’d been gone from town for a while now. Gone off to college in New Orleans. Soon his parents would move to New Orleans, too, and there would be little reason for him to come back to town.
But—amazingly—he was here now and about to free her from her misery.
“Ethan. Delaney,” she said, still not entirely sure that he wasn’t an apparition. She hadn’t seen him coming; she’d been distracted by the Confederate soldier just in front of him.
She stared as he kept working at the ropes. She could smell him, and he smelled good. He’d been riding earlier, she thought. He smelled of leather. He leaned back, focusing on one of the knots. She watched him as he concentrated. He had cool eyes. They were a golden green color. He was tanned. He had a lean face, and a thick strand of dark hair fell over one eye.
He was gorgeous.
She wasn’t in his league.
But here he was, helping her.
“Thank you,” she managed to say.