Chapter 22: Discovery

It was late, but no one felt like sleeping. Everyone was thinking about the little girl whose body had been buried out in the middle of the woods alone and her head…who knew where.

"I wonder if she was killed inside, or if her killer marched her outside and killed her there. Did he make it quick, or did she suffer? How did she die? Did she know she was going to be killed?" Shana sat on one end of the couch in the rec room, tossing back mouthful after mouthful of beer…and staying completely sober.

"Who killed her? Was it Kennedy? I wish we knew," Cam said quietly, nursing a beer but hardly even sipping it. "Is this little girl's ghost that we've seen here the girl to whom that body belonged? Is it possible that that could be the reason she still hangs around here, why she breaks glass? Is she trying to get someone's attention, to let them know where she's buried so she can finally be at peace?"

As if in response, there was a crash—from downstairs. The wine cellar, where they'd heard all the breaking bottles the first night. They all looked at each other in consternation.

"She's trying to get our attention," Cam said slowly. "I think maybe we should go down and see if maybe we can communicate with her, give us a clue to how to help her. I'd hate to think she's stuck here because her body's not properly laid to rest. Maybe we can give that to her."

"Wait here," Shana said as she got up and left the room, and a short time later she came back—wearing a little gold cross on a thin gold chain around her neck. Cam reached inside her shirt for the military-issue pentagram hanging on the bead chain next to her dog tags, and together the four of them went down to the basement.

Again there was a bottle of wine dropped and shattered on the floor, but this time instead of just cleaning it up right away, they all sat on the bottom step of the stairs. "All right," Shana said slowly to the empty air. "You have our attention. Now, who are you, and what are you doing here?" She said it lightly, conversationally.

The surface of the puddle of wine stirred, and suddenly a little trail of it started to separate from the main puddle. Like someone sticking a finger in it and trying to write in the spilled fluid. It took long minutes before they were finally able to read the spidery letters. "Sarah," Shana breathed. "You're Sarah. You're the little girl who went missing that no one ever found."

A piece of glass from the bottle lifted up off the floor a few inches and then dropped back again. A yes? Or a no? Shana crossed the basement floor, picked up the piece of glass—a nearly-complete thick circle from the bottom of the bottle—and moved it close to where they sat. "Move that piece of glass for yes, okay?"

The glass rose, hovered a few inches above the floor for a second, then dropped back to the floor—not hard enough to break it.

"Did Damien Kennedy kill you?" Cam asked quietly. The glass rose up off the floor almost immediately, then fell back with a tinkle. "Did he…hurt you…before he killed you?"

The glass rose, hovered, fell.

"We guessed that was what happened," Shana said quietly. "I'm sorry, Sarah. I know this is going to be poor consolation, but he is dead. We, Cam and I were victims too." And she quietly commenced telling the unseen ghost what had happened to them…and the results of the trial, and finding him dead. When she finally finished and the basement was momentarily quiet, a gust of chilly air blew around them, lifting a few strands of their hair with its passing.

"Is that your body out there that we found this afternoon?" The glass rose, hovered, dropped. "The Medical Examiner said that your…head…isn't with the body. Sweetheart, I'm so sorry this happened to you, and if there is any way that you can tell us where your head is, so we can give you a proper burial and help you move on, please let us know."

The puddle of spilled wine, which was now sending up a full, fruity scent throughout the basement, rippled as if it were being touched. Charlie gasped audibly as they watched the puddle of wine compress in the middle, in the shape of two small hands, and then the ghostly hands, covered in wine, went to the opposite wall of the basement and pressed two handprints against a section of the wall.

Shana got up, went to that portion of the wall. "It feels solid," she muttered, tapped against it, listening for unevenness in tone. Outwardly it looked like the same drywall-covered masonry as the rest of the basement, but when she dug at the wall beside the handprints with a fingernail, the chips that fell from under her nails were plaster.

Cam was on her feet like a shot. "There was something else there that was plastered over!"

Shana ran upstairs, coming back down with one of the large kitchen knives; Charlie and Cam grabbed screwdrivers and Snake Eyes grabbed a bottle opener, with its triangular curved tip, and they all dug at the wall. It was indeed plaster, layered over top of brick to make that section of the wall sound the same as the other sections. Bu there was no mortar between the brick, it had been laid by an inexpert hand, and when they started pulling bricks off the stack the whole badly-built brick wall crumbled, revealing a sheet of plywood. This was screwed in, and when Charlie used the screwdriver in his hand to unscrew the screws, they found a plain white wooden interior door on the other side. They all stood there looking at it for a moment, then Shana took a deep breath and opened it.

The stench of decaying rotting flesh made them gag, but what brought tears to all of their eyes was the tangle of by-now-familiar paraphernalia—whips, straps, restraints, and, in the middle of the pile, a small skull, mostly white since the process of decomposition, even in this closed-off room, had melted skin and fat from the skull, but the few shreds of what had once been hair still clung stubbornly to the skull.

"Oh God," Shana whispered.

"I'll examine it when I get to the lab, but I'm pretty sure it's her skull," the forensic anthropologist—who reminded them of Temperance Brennan—said as she picked up the head and placed it into a plastic evidence bag. "The kerf marks look like the same. Thank you, first for finding the body, and then for finding the rest of her. It's strange—it's been nearly ten years, and I would almost suspect you of having known where she was buried but that's impossible—you have never been to this property before."

"It's…we had a little help." Shana hesitated for a moment, then shrugged internally. "The place is haunted by a ghost; we managed to…communicate…and she told us where she was." Shana picked up a piece of plaster, which they'd carefully chipped around, that had the two child's handprints in spilled wine.

"We heard rumors the place was haunted from the banker that owned it, but we never once thought it might be the little girl everyone was looking for. In fact, when we heard about Damien Kennedy's trial, I still don't think it even occurred to anyone here to think she might have become a victim of the madman." The woman's face looked sad. "The thought of a child enduring some of the things talked about at the trial…it's unthinkable."

"Does Sarah still have any family left to bury her?" Cam said quietly. "If they don't I'll pay for her burial."

The woman looked at her startled, then tears filled her eyes. "You two are really connected to this little girl, aren't you? Knowing what she suffered and all."

"Yes," Cam said simply. Shana just nodded.

"I'll let you know as soon as we know something concrete. I think there might be a cousin left,

though she doesn't live around here."

"I appreciate that," Shana said, and the woman left.

They were all very, very quiet as they went upstairs, and Shana was quiet as she undressed and got into bed with Snake Eyes. There was no foreplay that night, she seemed disinclined to want to play, so he just held her, cuddled her, until his eyes closed. He felt her slide out of bed soon after, but moments later he heard Cam's low voice out in the hallway, and decided to stay in bed. If the girls wanted to have some girl talk together after what had happened that day, the last thing they would want was men horning in—even if it was the men they'd married.

Shana met Cam in the hallway. "Couldn't sleep either?" Cam shook her head. "Come on. Now that we've found Sarah's body, she can be at peace and we can get roaringly drunk. Without the guys." Cam nodded, and they settled down in the rec room with beers.

"I can't imagine what she went through," Shana finally said, an hour and four beers later. "Being that young, and in that much pain—Dear God, I hope Kennedy made it quick, and that she didn't suffer. Cutting off her head…I hope she wasn't alive when he did it."

"I can imagine. I know. I was there. With my aunt and uncle."

Shana reached out, took Cam's hand, held it close. "I forgot that. And I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry, Cam. I wish there was a way to make everyone who ever hurt you pay for what they've done."

"And you," Cam said. "There…is a way. Sort of. I've been thinking about it."

"How would you do that?"

Cam tried to explain. "The majority of the people out there in the world who are Christians would consider this as 'placing a curse' on the person who hurt you. It's actually not that specific, it's more along the lines of asking the Great Spirit to grant you justice, or the Goddess to make sure that someone who hurts an innocent gets back what they gave. It's more just asking for justice than it is placing a curse, but the understanding there is that if you deserved what happened to you, that is justice—and if you're being spiteful and vengeful and ask for 'justice' out of an impure reason, then that will rebound on you."

"That's…a really interesting idea." Shana pondered that. "So how do you do that? A spell or something?"

"A spell is simply focused prayer, Shana. It's not like you see on TV with robes and chanting and stuff like that. It's just meditating, and concentration, and just asking the Goddess-or the Great Spirit that Charlie believes in—to even out the cosmic balance."

"Um, can I…watch?"

A hint of laughter. "Of course you can. Not that there's much to see." Cam sat down cross-legged on the floor and closed her eyes. Shana waited. And waited. And waited.

Just as she was about to say "Cam, are you sure this is working?" the hair on the back of her neck prickled, stood up. In the middle of the room a sort of wispy white fog gathered, in the vague shape of a person. A short person. And then a face swam out of that mist, and then the rest of the mist coalesced, and Shana saw a little girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, with short brown curls. "Sarah?" she breathed.

The little girl nodded, smiled. She was short, maybe about four and a half feet, wearing a tee shirt and shorts and sneakers, and had an impish grin with a hint of freckles across her nose. Her lips moved, and although ho sound came out, Shana could still hear the little girl's words in her mind. :Thank you for finding me.:

"You're welcome," Shana said aloud, quietly. "I'm sorry for what happened to you. Cam and I will make sure you get a decent burial."

The girl's smile got a little wider. :Thank you. Although I don't think I'll leave just yet. I can see the light, but I don't want to go yet. I sort of like it here. And Sunshine and Storm like me. I go out and play with them when there's no one here to ride them.:

"Well, I'm planning on turning this place into a bed and breakfast—I'm not planning to live here."

The little girl laughed, a silvery whisper of sound. :I used to love ghost stories when I was alive. I'd tell my Mom that when I was dead I'd come back as a ghost and find a lovely old house to haunt and just have fun scaring people. Your sister—now she will be fun to scare if she ever comes back.:

Shana threw back her head and laughed. "Maybe I should patch things up with her and invite her back. It would almost be worth it just to freak her out." She thought. "And I do need a lawyer to handle legal stuff about the place, so maybe I should." A sudden thought occurred to her. "Oh, I'm having Mr. Anderson and his wife and daughter move in to run the place and take care of it, so if you're going to stick around, you're going to have to get along with them."

:I can do that.: The ghost's voice sounded slightly wistful. :I can sort of pretend she's my mom. I miss having a mom.:

Shana felt a sudden surge of sympathy. "What happened?"

:Mom died of cancer, and after she was gone Dad started drinking. He didn't care where I went, what I did, whether I was in school or not, and when we were evicted because he drank rather than pay the rent, we went out on the street because there was nowhere else to go. I was hungry one evening standing outside a bakery looking at the doughnuts when Mr. Kennedy came out and saw me. He offered to buy me one, then he brought me here and said he was going to give me dinner. I think he put some kind of drug in it and when I woke up I was tied up and he…did things…to me. You know.:

Yes, Shana knew.

:He walked me out to the corner of the property, made me dig a hole and lie down in it and then he cut my throat. It was really quick, I felt pain in my neck, and then suddenly I was floating over my own body. I couldn't bear to watch him cutting off my head, but I felt myself drawn here and I knew where he put it—in the basement closet that he boarded up and walled in. I'm sorry for scaring you with the wine bottles, I didn't know how else to get your attention. I tried not to break anything that looked really expensive.:

"It's okay," Shana said quietly. "I'm glad you did, if it helped. So, if you're going to stick around, can I advertise this place as a haunted bed and breakfast?"

Another laugh. :As long as you don't try to exorcise me.:

"Done." Shana said instantly. "We might actually get more visitors if you stick around than if you don't. Ghosts are really popular and we could do quite a business renting rooms for the night to paranormal research teams."

:Think I could be on TV?: the little girl's grin got wider, and Shana smiled back even as her heart ached. Too young. Sarah's life had been cut short, too young and too soon. It was one thing for Shana herself, captured as an adult with an adult's ability to reason and think; it had been different for Cam, fifteen and at the mercy of the adults around her. But even for her there'd been a measure of safety, because her Aunt and Uncle had made money from her, they couldn't kill her without taking a pay cut. Sarah, though…alone, friendless, invisible, no one who knew or cared, might as well have been an orphan for all the attention her father paid her, and having lost a mother… "I'll talk to Mr. Anderson's wife, let her know that you're here and she should just treat you like a daughter. Course, that means you'll have to clean rooms and no breaking any more dishes!"

Her silvery laugh was the last thing Shana heard as she faded out of sight, mist dissipating until there was nothing in the room. Shana stretched out on the couch waiting for Cam to come out of her meditative trance…

She opened her eyes as a hand touched her shoulder. She blinked blearily at Snake Eyes, who simply scooped her up in his arms and carried her off to bed.