He nodded in satisfaction. “A statue would be very nice. You will get someone to pay for a statue?”
“I’ll pay for a statue of her myself, if need be,” she assured him.
He looked at her indignantly. “A statue of me!” he declared. “Oh, well, of course, Peg must be honored, too, I suppose.”
“You’ll have a place when they rebuild the church, and Peg will be honored in the graveyard. How’s that?” she said, glad she could smile.
He nodded, staring at the fire. “There’s a chill in here,” he said. “Ah, these old bones…”
“It is chilly tonight, but I don’t think you’re really feeling your old bones,” she teased. She set her cup down and rose, walked to the fire and let it warm her hands. When she turned to speak to the reverend again, he was gone.
She sat back in her chair. In a little while she heard the others returning. It had grown late; she assumed they would head right up to their beds, but she sensed someone behind her, and this time she heard breathing.
She turned. Brad was there, just inside the doorway, staring at her.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he echoed, still staring at her.
“What?” she demanded.
“Laymon really didn’t say anything to you yet?” he asked, looking surprised. “I thought he called you.”
“About what?” she asked.
“They’re researching another site in Lower Manhattan,” he said.
She felt a streak of cold sweep along her spine, as if she’d been stroked by an icy sword. She looked at the fire, trying to speak perfectly calmly. “I’m sure that at any given time, someone is always digging somewhere in Lower Manhattan.”
“This is going to be a major project.” He was quiet for a minute. “Near Hastings House.”
“Great,” she murmured, still staring at the flames.
He hunkered down by her chair. “You know, only the one room was severely damaged. They’ve pretty much got the place back up and running now.”
Her fingers tensed on the arms of her chair. “Glad to hear it.”
“What happened there was a tragic accident, Leslie.”
She stared at him—hard. “Yes, I do know that, Brad.”
“The point is, you don’t seem to get it, to understand what that means. I’m not trying to be brutal here, Leslie, but Matt died. You didn’t.”
She stared blankly back at him for several moments.
“I almost died there.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I know. And I’m grateful to be alive. I truly appreciate every day.”
“It’s time to go back.”
“Time to go back?” she repeated.
“You need to accept the past, and move into the present and then into the future. No, you’ll never forget Matt. But you have to accept that he’s dead. You’ve been…well, kind of weird since it happened. Maybe you need to confront your memories.”
Again, she stared at him.
Oh, Brad. You don’t get it, do you? And I will never, ever explain, I can assure you of that.
“We still have work to do here,” she said flatly.
He waved a hand in the air. “We’re the pros—there are lots of worker bees. Thanks to you and your amazing instincts, all that’s left is the grunt work. We can move on.”
She shook her head.
“Listen, this new site is really important…. I know Laymon wants to talk to you about it. He’s going back to lead the team, with or without you. With or without us,” Brad amended quickly.
Her nails dug into the arms of the chair. She stared at the flames. “I’ve made some promises here,” she said.
He looked puzzled. “You made promises? To whom?”
“To myself. To see that people are honored, that bones are buried with the proper rites,” she said.
“We’ll tell Laymon, and he’ll make sure it happens,” Brad said. “It’s not like we’re leaving the country. With the way your reputation has grown, you can drop a word and people will hustle, you know that.”
“Okay,” she murmured.
“Laymon got the call when we were on the way to the tavern, and he talked about nothing else once we got there,” Brad said softly. “New York City, Leslie! You know you love it.”
“I can’t go back.”
“You need to go back.”
“Brad…”
“Leslie, please.”
She stared at him and saw the earnest plea in his eyes. She lowered her head quickly, not wanting him to read her thoughts.
Hastings House. It was fixed, repaired, reopened. Brought back to life again. But the dead…the dead couldn’t be brought back to life…?
And some of the dead had never left.
She lowered her head, biting her lower lip. It had started immediately. In the hospital, she’d thought she’d gone mad. There had been the horrible pain, the ache like the loss of a limb or half of her soul, knowing Matt was gone. The concussion, the bruising, the cuts, scrapes, burns…
Those had been nothing compared to the pain of losing Matt.
At first she had lived in a stage somewhere between consciousness and dreams. One night she’d awakened in the hospital morgue, drawn there by a man who had lost his wedding ring when they’d rolled him down. All he had wanted was to have his ring put back on his finger. But she hadn’t known that, and she’d freaked. She was lucky she hadn’t wound up in the psychiatric ward that night. Luckily for her, the next day she’d discovered an article in a news magazine about a man named Adam Harrison and the group of paranormal investigators who worked for him. No matter how the reporter had tried to trip him up, the man had come off as intelligent and well spoken, and not at all like a kook. She had started to shake, reading the article. She had called Harrison Investigations immediately, and, to her amazement, Adam Harrison himself had shown up in the hospital. They had talked then, and again when she had been released. It was as if she had instantly acquired not only a new best friend, one she felt she had known forever, but as if she’d gotten her father back, though her real father had been gone since she was a little girl.
She’d called Adam right away when she’d started talking to the ghostly Colonial
