“How do you know?” Brady looked around. It wasn’t a big cemetery, but given that he had no clue where Brady was buried, the task to find his headstone seemed a little daunting.
“Because there’s a ghost over there, the one we call the Blond Man, from Shelby and Boston’s house. He’s waving to me. I think that must be the first Brady Stritmeyer.”
The hairs on the back of Brady’s neck stood straight up and did the tango. Holy crap. “He’s here? In the cemetery?” He studied her face. Piper looked scared, but like she was trying to cover up that fact. “Have you ever seen him outside of the house before?”
“No. I didn’t know the spirits could travel like that. But this is a cemetery, so I guess it’s not surprising that he could be here, too.” She stood up. “Should we go see?”
Her voice was a little shaky.
“You can stay here if you want,” Brady told her. “Just point me in the right direction.” Though with his luck he would walk straight through the dead dude.
“No, I’m okay.” Piper was lying to Brady. She wasn’t okay. Something about the fact that a ghost had traveled, well, it felt like he was following her. Which was more than unnerving. She also felt weird that throughout her whole life she had heard Shelby tell stories about the Blond Man, a ghost who wore a suit and smiled and waved at everyone. No one had ever associated him with the fiancé who had been murdered, and that such a cheerful spirit had been bludgeoned to death, and was a cheater, felt strange. It also seemed horrible that Rachel and Brady were trapped in the afterlife together, though Piper had never seen the two of them at the same time.
What would it be like to be stuck here, on earth, unable to communicate with living humans? Unable to touch or eat or feel? It sounded horrible.
“What direction are we going in here?”
“Over there. Second row. About five in from the fence.” Was it her imagination or did the man start waving more enthusiastically?
“How do you know they’re ghosts? What do they look like to you? Are they translucent or something?” Brady asked her curiously as they walked through the bushy grass.
Piper pondered the question. “I just know they’re dead. It’s obvious to me the second I see them. There is a . . . wispy quality to them. And a coldness. There is no body heat, no breathing, nothing that indicates they’re alive. I guess it’s like a reflection in a mirror. You just know the difference.”
She thought about the man who had appeared in her dream that morning, the older guy in plaid who had a rope around his neck. She hadn’t remembered him at all until the dream, but now she couldn’t shake the memory. She had seen him half a dozen times outside her trailer as a kid, sitting under the big oak tree, his knees up to his chest. Had he hung himself in that tree? Had he been a victim of a sinister crime? So many people, so many stories, so much pain and loss . . . Why did they show themselves to her?
It was a burden she didn’t understand.
“Let me know if I get too close to him, okay? I don’t want to be the douche bag who walks into a spirit.”
“You did punch him a couple of days ago.”
Brady stopped scanning headstones as they walked and gave her a sheepish look. “I guess until that very second I didn’t actually believe you were seeing anything.”
She couldn’t blame him for that. She probably wouldn’t believe it either if she wasn’t the one seeing it. Reaching out, she touched Brady’s arm. “It’s this one.” The man, who she had a hard time thinking of as Brady, was pointing to a small, weathered stone. It had fallen over at some point and was partially sunken into the hard red clay soil.
The Blond Man smiled at her and nodded.
“Oh, my God, that’s freaky as hell,” Brady said, his face losing some of its color as he knelt down and ran his fingers over the headstone. “Brady Stritmeyer, January 7, 1860 to August 12, 1887. Talk about feeling someone walk on your grave. Staring at my own name on a headstone is a little disturbing, as you predicted.”
Piper squatted down beside him. “There’s a quote there, a long one. What does it say?”
Brady read carefully, “‘When he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine, That all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun.”
Piper felt the goose bumps start at her fingertips and gallop up her arms. She shivered in the warm sun, reaching out, needing to touch the stone herself. “It’s Shakespeare. From Romeo and Juliet.” She had been romantic enough as a teenager to remember such an overblown assessment of a man. But here, in death, it had a poignancy she hadn’t understood before.
“Really? I guess someone was really grieving for him when he died. That sucks.” Brady sat back. “I feel like we should have brought flowers or something.”
Piper watched the bliss on the man’s face as he hovered near them, watching their actions. “I don’t think it matters so much. I think he’s just happy someone is here to see him.” She tried to make eye contact, emboldened by his serene nature. He wasn’t frightening at all. “Did you love her?” she asked in a whisper. “Like Romeo and Juliet loved one another? Too much passion, too much rashness?”
But his eyes wouldn’t meet hers. Instead he stared down at his headstone, his smile drifting off his face, like he had remembered death was no cause for joy.
Piper followed his gaze, and what she saw made her start, falling out of her crouched position when she lost her balance. “Oh, my God.”
“What?” Brady took her arm, trying to help her back up, but she just sat on the grass, drawing her legs in towards her, away from the headstone.
The bleeding headstone. The name of Brady Stritmeyer was leaching blood from the bottom of each letter, like fat red tears trailing down over the pain-filled words of loss, running faster and faster.
“Do you see that?” she whispered. Of course he didn’t see it. No one ever saw any of it but her.
“See what? Are you okay?”
She shook her head. No. She wasn’t okay. Because the blood was forming a word as it rolled towards the end of the headstone, one lone, horrible word . . . “MURDER.”
Swallowing hard, feeling like she needed to scream, but keeping it in, she pulled her hands in, too, not wanting to touch any of what she was seeing. Was the blood real? Would it dampen her fingers? She wasn’t brave enough to test it.