Spirits Read online

  Tori glanced over some of the pamphlets and sipped her drink. They might have been two old friends having a sleepover. Amelia wagered Tori’s ghost stories were a lot more terrifying than any of the ones she might have to offer.

  “How’s your tea? Do you need more?”

  Tori shook her head.

  “No. Thank you.”

  It was the first time she’d spoken since the two trudged back into the house. She’d been in a dead sleep when she heard someone thunder down the stairs and bolt out of the front door. Chasing a lunatic down the boardwalk in the middle of the night was not how she’d planned to spend her night.

  “We need to talk,” Amelia said.

  Tori pulled her mug away from her lips and leaned forward, knocking the pamphlets onto the floor.

  “I’m sorry about …”

  “No. Listen. I lied to you. I lie to everyone about it, really. People who don’t know the truth anyway. My husband didn’t die of cancer. He was an alcoholic. At the end of his life, he was yellow, completely yellow, with tubes sticking out of him. He’d always been fit, but in the final days, his belly was so bloated, he looked like a woman about to give birth. And do you know what he wanted more than anything as he lay there, struggling to breathe on his own? He wanted a fucking drink. It ate him alive. God, I know I sound preachy, and that’s part of the reason I never really talk about this to anyone, because the last thing I want people to think of me is that I’m some holier-than-thou bitch. I’ve got my vices. Everyone does. But Jesus H. Christ, Tori, you’re killing yourself.”

  Tori sat stunned for a moment, looking beyond Amelia. She took a long drink from her mug and looked into Amelia’s eyes at last.

  “I don’t think there’s any hope for me,” she said. “This is beyond alcoholism. My ghosts have come to haunt me.”

  Amelia wanted to pummel her, to smack some sense into her dim head. She clenched her fists and inhaled.

  “Please.” She kept her voice even and detached. “Please come with me to a meeting tomorrow. We’ll find the earliest one we can. Just come and see. Try. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Tori pressed her lips into a straight line, and her eyes went to the pamphlets below.

  “I’ll go. I don’t know if they can help me, but I’ll go.”

  A fiery ball of light burst through the gauzy curtain. Tori snapped her head forward, still clutching a mug with the amber dregs of tea at the bottom. The sun was finally up. It felt like an eternal night, and she was grateful that the sun had bothered to rise at all. When she pulled her head off the cushion, a jolt of pain shot all the way up to her jaw. She winced and rubbed her neck, tilting her head side to side.

  A tuft of dark hair peeked over the arm of the sofa on the far end of the room. Amelia snored softly.

  Tori put down a foot and slid across the pamphlets. Shit. AA. She’d agreed to go to a meeting this morning, even though it felt like a waste of time. Something was after her, and even if she never touched a drop again, it would find her. Any other time, she might not have cared. She might have just let it take her. But a longing settled deep in her gut to get over this and to maybe even find happiness. Didn’t she deserve to be happy? Or was that something reserved only for people who’d never killed anyone? Karma balanced things out. She’d taken a life, and, in turn, her life had crumbled around her. Only karma wasn’t enough. Whatever chased her, it was out for blood.

  The memory of that phone call buzzed in her head. Amelia bore witness to the fact that she’d actually left the house. That much really happened, she decided. Piecing the rest together might prove tricky.

  She’d wait until Amelia was up and ask if she could call her mother. That would settle the biggest worry weighing on her this morning. If her father was dead or alive, there was little she could do about it. She didn’t want to alarm her mother though. She hadn’t called home in years, not after Dad called her a self-centered bitch during one of his benders. The words still stung. Dad was the King of the Self-Centered Bitches, a man so determined to destroy his life that he was more than happy to take down everyone around him, too. Mom, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, stuck by his side and had effectively disowned her. It wasn’t a conversation she was eager to have, but it was one she needed to have.

  Amelia groaned and rolled over.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Seven thirty-five,” Tori said, glancing at the grandfather clock by the fireplace.

  “Ugh. Okay, I’m up.”

  She turned herself upright and put a hand to her forehead.

  “We can probably find a meeting soon. Let me grab my phone, and I’ll let you know what I find.”

  One eye still closed, her hair gathered up on her head like a nest, she made her way down the hall to the office. Tori followed at a distance and said, “Hey, do you mind if I use your phone to call home? I’m still pretty upset about last night. I’ll pay you back if there are any extra charges.”

  A little pppfffttt sound puffed from her lips.

  “Unlimited minutes. You’re good. Let me just look up an AA meeting around here, and we’ll go. After breakfast, though. I’m starving.”

  The glow from the phone lit up Amelia’s face, and for the first time, Tori noticed the woman’s true beauty. Her eyes were almond-shaped, suggesting some Asian ancestry. She had a small, flat nose and cherubic lips that pouted slightly as she scrolled through her options on the phone. Something shined beyond her smooth skin, deep within. There was a tenderness to her eyes, like a child in a Millais painting.

  “Ah,” she said, straightening herself. “Here we go. Looks like the Rio Grande Universalist Fellowship has a meeting at 10. We have plenty of time to grab a bite.”

  She handed over her phone.

  “Go ahead and make your call. I’m gonna run upstairs and make myself look human again.”

  The slim phone felt heavy in her hand. She knew the old landline number by heart; it was the same one she’d had as a kid, but the thought of punching in the numbers made her throat go dry. She could even imagine the light beige AT&T telephone in the rec room brrrriiinnngg-ing, and her mother picking up on the first ring. There was no answering machine. Dad never figured out how to set them up, and both her parents figured if they’d gone through life without leaving messages or having messages left for them, they could still survive without the technology.

  Tori was halfway up the steps, the phone still in her palm, when she brushed up against a section of yellow floral wallpaper that flapped up. She put a hand to it and held it in place, hoping to smooth it out and affix it to the wall, but it had long lost its bond.

  Something moved beneath the paper surface. Tori could only watch as a large lump moved its way across the tattered wallpaper. An illusion, she decided. It had to have been something in the print or a trick of the light.

  It was enough to send her charging up the stairs and into her suite. The moment she closed the bedroom door, a cheerful tune jingled on the cellphone in her hand. She looked at the screen. UNKNOWN CALLER. The little ditty … was it playing louder now? … continued to chime. Shouldn’t the voicemail have picked up by now? She pressed the Talk button and put the phone to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  The word came out cracked and dusty.

  Static crackled on the other end. A sound like metal swirling against metal followed, as if a ladle rubbed against the bottom of a copper pot.

  “Dad … Daddy … Dah …’s day. Daid. Dayed.”

  The static hissed and popped. A New England accent, no-nonsense but polite, struggled against it, and Tori could only pick up sounds and parts of words.

  “Hello? Hello? Who’s there? I can’t understand you,” Tori said.

  A flush of heat overcame her, and she wanted to hit the End button. A crossed wire, a wrong number, a stupid prank. All she had to do was hit the End button.

  Still, she wanted to know.

  A demonic, hacking laugh broke through on the line. The voice taunt
ed, “Daddy’s dead. Daddy’s dead. Daddy’s dead. And you’re gonna die next.”

  The phone zapped her hand, and she dropped it to the floor with a thud. She put a hand to her mouth.

  “Everything okay? Are you ready to go?” Amelia called from the bottom of the staircase. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

  The last thing she wanted to do was eat. Her body quaked as she moved to the desk and grabbed the airplane bottle of Fireball, unscrewed the cap, and tipped it back. The cinnamon shot burned down her throat, but the taste hardly mattered. It was medicine. It might as well have been Dimetapp or Theraflu. Shudders rippled from her chest to her limbs. A shot usually eased the shakes in a matter of seconds. That warm radiation was oddly absent this time. Cold tremors ached her bones. She unsnapped the cap from the gin and chugged it until the fumes tingled her nose hairs, and she felt breathless. The bottle chunked against the wood as she set it back down, and she gasped for air.

  “You okay?” Amelia hollered up.

  Footsteps clonked up the stairs, and she knew she’d have to fix herself up. Amelia was ready to kick her ass to the curb.

  She tucked the empty bottle into a trash can, pulled a wad of Kleenexes from the box on the desk, and covered it up. Then she tiptoed to the bathroom.

  “I’ll only be a minute,” she said. “Just need to get dressed.”

  At the vanity, she saw a haggard, puffed mess. Dark, swollen rings encircled her eyes. Her hair frizzed in all directions. It could’ve been the bad lighting, but her skin looked sallow.

  She ran a comb over her hair and pulled it into a loose ponytail. She scooped some cold tap water into her palms and splashed it against her face. It smelled like rust, but it made her eyes feel less like boiled eggs.

  She went to the armoire, pulled out a hoodie, and sifted through the pile of clothes on the floor for a pair of jeans. A white piece of paper stuck up from the back pocket of the jeans. It was the card from that guy at the Rusty Nail. Chris. Chris Silver, the delusional man who wanted to save her. She laughed at the idea that someone could save her as she pulled them over her hips. She studied the card and stuffed it back into her pocket.

  The liquor bottles taunted her on the other side of the armoire, and she stared longingly back at the gin. Would it be so horrible to take a little more, just to take the edge off? Would Amelia smell it on her and kick her out? What sort of fucked-up, matronly hold on her did Amelia have anyway? There were other places in Cape May. Still, there was something about Amelia that made her want the woman’s approval. She didn’t have a lot of friends––not real ones anyway, and Amelia was a kind person who’d shown her compassion. Plus, she’d lost her husband to drinking, something that scared Tori more than a little. It seemed like a hokey, Hallmark card sentiment, but she wanted to stop drinking to make Amelia proud of her.

  As if on cue, Amelia knocked at the door. Tori tucked her feet into a fresh pair of wool socks and pulled on her still-wet sneakers.

  “All set,” she said through the door and opened it.

  She’d never been more eager to leave a place in her life.

  Outside, a chill hovered in the air in the wake of the storm. The sun edged its way over the ocean, but it offered little in the way of warmth. Tori pulled her hoodie up over her head and shoved her frozen fingers into her pockets.

  It was a quiet trek along the sidewalk. A couple walked their German shepherd. They nodded a greeting. A sandpiper hopped from morsel to morsel strewn along Beach Drive. Her stomach gurgled as they walked. They passed hokey palm trees that looked strange here. But, then again, so did the tacky mint-green colored motels they grew near. The east side of the island looked dignified, with its brightly colored mansions staring out at the sea like painted-up war widows waiting for their fighting men to come home. It was a place for well-to-do New Yorkers on holiday from the city heat and grime. The west side looked like 1954 threw up and the mess was never mopped up. It was a bizarre collision of eras, but Tori liked this side. Childhood summers were spent getting tossed into the pool by her shitfaced Pop. Tacky, threadbare carpeting and smelly, polyester comforters were a constant in those memories. This side of the cape seemed less judgmental. The snobby lifestyle she’d lived back in Montclair didn’t fit her. She’d wanted it to. She’d been led to believe, maybe by the men in her life, that was the thing to strive for. A cold, sterile apartment with cold, sterile friends. Cocktails at the bar and trips to Paris or London every summer. That façade itched. It was too tight across the chest.

  She was just some New England girl whose father drank too much PBR and Jameson and whose mother dutifully mopped up the mess and tucked old Dad into bed to sleep it off until the next time.

  Amelia led her to a small café on a side street situated across from a towering oak. Tori smashed her toes against a jumbled, cracked segment of sidewalk pushed up by the oak’s roots and nearly toppled forward.

  “That’s about all the excitement I’m prepared for this morning,” she said, trying to save face.

  Amelia pressed her lips together and gave her a side-eyed glance.

  The hostess at the Buttered Biscuit led them to a light-drenched table with a street view. Tourists flitted about, more than she would’ve imagined on a chilly day.

  Amelia propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her intertwined fingers.

  “You were drinking earlier, weren’t you?”

  Cold prickled at Tori’s neck.

  “No. Of course not.”

  Amelia sneered.

  “I’m not stupid. I can smell it on you.”

  She leaned in and lowered her voice.

  “You’re not dealing with an amateur here. My husband drank every single day. Couldn’t function without the stuff.”

  She paused a moment, and her features softened.

  “I’m not a bitch. I get that you’re struggling. That’s why I want to help. God knows, maybe I could’ve done more to help Bill. Maybe this is my second chance to help someone who’s drowning. I don’t know. I was raised in a Catholic household, and I was always taught that people come into our lives for a reason. Whether or not you accept my help is up to you, of course, but do not mistake my kindness for weakness. My help comes with an expiration date.”

  She leaned back in her chair and looked at the menu as if they’d been discussing the unpredictable weather and it was time to move to another subject.

  “I feel like pancakes today. How ‘bout you? Anything look good?”

  Tori sat there for a moment, drinking in the lecture she’d just received. She didn’t want pancakes or anything else for that matter, but she scanned the menu and considered her options.

  Something horrible flashed in her head. It flickered like a grainy 70s exploitation film in her mind. Red splattered her clothes, and she clutched a knife in her white, knobby knuckles. She brought it down again and again into Amelia’s chest, pulling up viscera and blood as she swung it back down again.

  The vision made her gasp and put a hand to her face. Amelia glanced up from her menu and said, “Everything all right? I hear they make really great omelets. Never tried one myself.”

  Tori’s mouth hung open for a moment. That flash of remorseless violence was not something she’d even consider, let alone try to enact. She pushed the thought from her mind and said, “Yeah, maybe I’ll try an omelet. Haven’t had one in a while.”

  Food might do her some good. She hadn’t eaten much over the past couple of days, and her jeans already gapped at the back.

  The waitress took their order, and they sat in uncomfortable silence, watching people go into the few shops and restaurants that were open after Labor Day. Amelia pulled her phone from her pocket and scanned it.

  “Hm. Did someone call when you were upstairs?” she asked.

  Tori’s mouth went dry.

  “Yeah. The phone rang, but it was an unknown caller. Probably a wrong number.”

  If she’d told her the truth, she’d just chalk it u
p to a drunken hallucination. But there was proof after all that maybe something dreadful had called her on Amelia’s phone, something determined to reach her at any cost.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Rio Grande Unitarian Universalist Fellowship’s basement looked like a 1970s rec room with its wood paneling, green shag carpeting, and a foosball table positioned along the far wall. It smelled like four decades worth of casseroles.

  Metal folding chairs filled the center of the space, and a bespectacled guy in a green sweater vest stood at a lectern at the front.

  Amelia stepped into the room and asked, louder than Tori wanted, “Is this the AA meeting?”

  The man nodded once, and she and Tori took seats near the back.

  “We’re waiting on a few regulars,” the man said. “We’ll get started in just a minute.”

  The door clanged shut behind them, and Tori turned to see Bracken the Bartender walk in. What kind of shit was this? He served alcohol for a living, and he was in AA? She was so puzzled, she almost walked up to him, but the fear of what she’d seen at the gazebo, the fear of everything that had been happening to her recently, glued her to her spot.

  He looked fresh and rugged in the mid-morning sunlight streaming through the basement windows. For a moment, she forgot about her troubles, and something she hadn’t felt in a long time stirred within her––the desire to love and be loved. He held the door for a few seconds, and a dark-haired woman wearing large sunglasses walked in behind him and took his hand. All of the air in Tori’s body streamed out. Wife? Girlfriend? Maybe she was a sister. She didn’t look old enough to be his mother.

  He led her by the hand to a seat near the front and turned to face Tori before they sat. He didn’t seem flustered at all by her presence there. He didn’t turn around again.

  The door opened again, and two more people entered, a short, balding man in a flannel shirt and trucker’s cap and a middle-aged woman in a sweater dress.