Echoes Between Us - McGarry, Katie Page 0,96
pauses in terror and when her eyes land on the statue and she sees the hands are still folded, she throws her pissed-off glare at Miguel. “You’re dead.”
Miguel starts backing up as he’s quite aware Sylvia is faster than him. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m at a cemetery.”
She’s off, so is Miguel and their shouts and laughter carry off into the night.
That leaves me and Veronica. She’s smiling, which is beautiful, but a part of me is heavy. I hate that there are things I should tell her that she doesn’t want to know. I raise the camera and take of picture of her.
“Hoping to find a spirit orb attached to me?” she asks.
“Just like taking pictures of you.”
“Hmm,” is her only response. Veronica pivots on her toes and studies the statue of Mary. “I have to agree with Sylvia. The statue is creepy. Being Christian and all, I guess I should find some sort of peace in a figure of the mother of God, but I don’t. Something about this statue feels … off.”
I have to agree as I snap a few pictures of the statue. The energy of the cemetery is nothing like it was at the bridge. There’s something here that feels darker, heavier, as if there’s something looming behind gravestones, in the trees, watching, waiting … attaching.
As if there’s a coat of slime right above the layer of my skin and the longer we stay here, the thicker it becomes. “It’s because it’s cloudy tonight and a thunderstorm is supposed to move through later this evening. It’s the energy in the atmosphere messing with us.”
“It’s energy all right,” says Veronica, “but it’s not the weather. I think it’s the spirits here. The ones at the bridge felt more open and inviting after we took the fall, but here … I feel as if they want us to leave.”
Veronica reaches out her hand and a shock of electricity rushes through me when her fingers come in contact with Mary’s hands. I take a picture, several of them, and I’m surprised to find my own hands shaking when I lower the camera. Veronica isn’t touching the statue anymore, but she’s stretching her fingers as if they’re stiff and ache.
“You okay?” I ask.
She doesn’t respond immediately, just stares at the statue.
“Veronica?”
“I’m good.” She turns in time to see Miguel and Sylvia laughing and smiling as they walk back toward us. “We should take some EVPs, and maybe try the ghost box.”
VERONICA
The four of us sit on a grassy knoll on the edge of the cemetery and take turns asking questions into the recorder. Some silly, some serious, all with a level of respect. Something is a bit off here, though. Something beyond the normal, almost as if we’re the ones being watched.
“What would you do if a girl in a prom dress walked around that curve?” Miguel asks as soon as he turns off the digital recorder.
“Honestly?” Sawyer asks.
“Yeah.”
“Run.”
The two of them laugh while Sylvia and I glance at each other. We’ve picked nothing up on the recorder, nothing we can hear with human ears, and I’m growing restless as I feel that Sarah isn’t the one making the skin at the base of my neck prickle with unease. There’s something else here, the something Glory has been warning me about.
“I think Sarah’s ghost must be a residual haunting,” I say.
“What makes you say that?” Sawyer asks.
“Most of the stories we read have one thing in common—they see Sarah walking along the road and cemetery. As Sylvia said earlier, think of all the emotion that probably went into preparing for the dance. All the joy and hope and nerves and then for it to end with such disappointment and fear? That seems like a ton of powerful emotion and it seems plausible that emotion would imprint onto the area.”
“If it’s a residual haunting,” says Miguel, “then why haven’t we seen it?”
“Maybe we did when we took that curve,” I counter. “What we saw was a white flash. Unless there are albino deer on this hill or a massive, dinosaur-sized rabbit, that wasn’t Bambi or Thumper crossing the road.”
Sylvia shivers and wraps herself tighter into the blanket she found in the trunk of Miguel’s SUV. “I still think this is too creepy.”
“You’re looking at death and ghosts all wrong,” I say. “Why does any of it have to be scary? Why can’t it be the same as taking a breath in and then taking a breath out?