food court that burned down twenty years earlier. It was now overrun by green ash trees and the branches of sawtooth oaks hanging over the limestone walls. The darkness made their claw-like foliage more sinister.
“This is closed for renovations.” Janson stared up at the makeshift sign blocking the crumbling stairs. “Trespassers will be prosecuted,” he read.
“Shhh.” Only Old Finn from the neighboring pawnshop cared—he’d probably set up cameras here too, but once he figured out she was the culprit, he’d give her a pass, especially after he saw what she did with his safeguard that he’d set up against trespassers.
She took a deep breath, listening to the soft breeze run over the sculpture made up of an old tuba, trombones, trumpets, teapots and other pieces of metal. Originally the artwork was designed to show that these redesigned instruments would play music in a different way. When everything was functioning the way it should, the water was clear and clean, and danced through the instruments to make the pretty sounds of nature. But now that they were renovating, it lay silent, almost eerily so, which was what she wanted.
“Civil war soldiers came to these waters to be healed,” she said, “but they had more to restore than broken bones; their souls and minds were damaged in such a way that the waters couldn’t reach them. Some of these men had returned... changed. Some blamed the ones who had given them hope, in unnatural, unreasonable ways.” She was really making this up as she went, blending complete fibs with local legends to make it all fit.
A shudder ran through Janson’s most formidable bodyguard, and the shorter one elbowed him to keep it together. Mollie still felt bad about being too scary. The man’s eyes were as wide as saucers—but she couldn’t think of a way to get rid of him, so she stubbornly pressed on with her story. “Something bad happened here, and the land remembers and is scarred. Perhaps our world replays tragedies to make sense of it, perhaps it cannot let go of horrors and asks for our sympathies; but nothing we know quite explains the mysteries. With all of our scientific knowledge, we know as much as cave men trying to figure out how a lightbulb works.”
Janson’s brows lifted as he unsuccessfully tried to keep back his amusement. Frustration rushed through her. So far, she was terrifying his bodyguards—even the shorter one had dropped his flirting, looking uneasy, but Janson was untouchable. She had to set the scene for this to work, so she steadied herself and tried again. “Eureka Springs has its share of the unexplained. Ours is called ‘The Wanderer’—” She’d almost called the ghost “The Watcher,” which would’ve been disastrous since she’d made up that name earlier. Mollie straightened. “He’s a soldier; that much we know, but what does The Wanderer want? Is he stuck here for some untold crime against nature? After all, isn’t that what we fear most, that we would share his fate if we cannot let go of the things of this world when we meet the next one to come? Is that The Wanderer’s warning to us? Or is his warning of a more temporal nature? Many have reported sightings of The Wanderer before an accident or some violence occurs, but the question is, does our tortured soldier warn of accidents or... does he cause them?”
“He causes it,” Janson hazarded a guess.
And some people made too many jokes and ruined the mood. She glared and tried to figure out a way around it. “Some have reported a shadow, a face in the trees, a figure; others hear whispers, mumbling strange words of things that are to come.” She hesitated, trying to gather her thoughts; she was in danger of making The Wanderer seem like the father in Hamlet, so she tried to backtrack. “But there’s one thing in common that these witnesses all experience—a light, almost blindingly bright, and then the wanderer is in their face, staring with a mouth gaping open to show nothing but an empty hole. Some think he was buried here. Others think he met his end in the fire at the old saloon that used to be here. No building can stay long on this property.”
Janson indicated the reconstruction sign. “And yet Eureka Springs foolishly tries to rebuild... just like every other place here.”
She shrugged, realizing she’d tried that angle for most of her stories on the tour. It was time to insert a personal story.