"Let go, Rae. Let us go."
Never in a million years could she mistake that voice. Never did she not believe that she wouldn't see Ginny Grover standing on the steps behind her, looking beautiful and benevolent against the glowing backdrop of white stone.
"Ginny?"
It wasn't a cry of denial but rather a plea that it be true.
But of course it couldn't be. Ginny was dead.
A mistake. Had it been an awful mistake? Had some other unfortunate been killed upon the tracks and wrongfully identified as her best friend because of the belongings scattered nearby?
Her mind told her no, but her stubborn heart wanted to hang on desperately to the notion.
"It's too late for you to make amends, Rae. You've got your own life to live. You had your chance to make it up to me. Four years, Rae."
"But I never had a chance to say I was sorry," she cried in her own defense. "I never had a chance to tell you I was wrong."
"You just did. Go home. Let us rest."
"I can't, Ginny. Not until I know what happened to you."
"What difference does it make now?" came a sadly spoken truth. "You can't change what's happened. But if you don't leave things alone, you'll join us. Is that what you want? To be like us? Is that the price you want to pay for the mistakes you've made?"
"No."
Even as she said the word, Ginny's beloved features began to dissolve into the horrifying remains of a track accident. As she spoke, the flesh fell away from the crushed side of her face, leaving an unrecognizable mess of shattered bone.
"Don't make us come after you, Rae. Mind your own business. Your pride and guilt are denying us the peace we deserve."
"Let us rest," came another agonizingly familiar voice, one Rae hadn't heard for decades ... except in restless dreams. Her mother--wearing the same polka-dot spring dress she'd had on when Rae had found her lying on the kitchen floor with blood splatters playing connect the dot--stood, impossibly, next to the mangled corpse of Ginny Grover. "Haven't you done enough? Haven't you ruined enough lives with your meddling?"
The shock Rae felt was numbed by remembrance. Wasn't that what Bette Grover had said?
"Listen to them, Rae." Thomas Grover's demand, always the voice of reason. He joined the pair on the steps, the fact that the side of his head was blown out like a smashed melon didn't lessen the compassion in his gaze. "If you'd only listened, none of us would be here. This isn't about you. Let it go."
"She won't listen. She never listens to anybody."
Rae staggered to her feet at the sound of her father's condemning tone.
Sporting a self-inflicted wound that mimicked the one destroying the symmetry of his best friend's skull, Frederick Borden started down the steps. Blood, brain and bone rained down onto the pristine white stairs behind him. His lips drew back from impact-shattered teeth in a frightening smile.
"You can't tell my girl anything. She only learns through example. Hands on, right, Rae? Is that what you need? A little hands on?"
"Mama?"
Rae looked past the threatening advance to the figure of her mother. But now, as then, Anita Borden remained passively out of the way, looking at her through sad, dead eyes, smiling serenely as if to say she must resign to her fate.
"No. No!"
She wasn't Anita Borden, waiting complaisantly for the escalating violence to claim her life. She wasn't Ginny Grover who cast off caution in spite of consequence. She was a survivor. That's what had saved her sanity, and now would save her life.
She bolted down the steps, away from the menacing apparition and the mournful trio behind him. She didn't look back. With the setting of the sun, humidity settled in, heavy and thick. Her skin was wet with it. Her lungs labored with the effort of wringing air out of each breath. Tour buses were loading their final call along the side street. She pushed her way through the lines, muttering apologies but never slowing down. She had to get away. She had to think.
They rose out of the darkness ahead of her, heroically oversized, determinedly focused on their goal beneath the glow of the moon. Nineteen poncho-clad ghosts from another past war intent upon their final advance. Rae dodged between the eerie figures left to their eternal patrol in a distant Korean rice paddy. Finding herself among the gleaming specters gave Rae a chill of foreboding. But none of them moved. None of them were real. Not as real as the memories pursuing her.
)
