Texas Gothic

  “Oh, I’ll bet you’ll be interested in this, Amy,” said Mark, reeling back my attention to the discussion at the table. “Dr. Douglas made a preliminary estimate and thinks your skull may be as old as the first one. So tomorrow we’ll excavate around that spot, looking for more remains, and probably dig some test holes between the two finds.”

  “So this could really be a big deal,” I said, a little tentatively. “Like you were talking about this afternoon.”

  Everyone else was too excited to hear the conflict in my voice. They chattered about historical significance and writing papers and getting to name the site. But for a moment, the din of the bar retreated, and I was back in the field, back to hot sun and cool earth, and I was thinking about bones and ghosts and wondering how I would be able to sleep tonight without seeing the hollow gaze of the skull in my dreams.

  Caitlin had shaken off her pique and joined the speculation. “My money is on a lost settlement.”

  “It could date back to the Spanish colonization,” said Lucas. “There were a number of failed colonies in the area.”

  “Missions, you mean.” Phin’s train of thought wasn’t hard to follow. It might as well have been as neon as the beer signs over the bar.

  “You’re thinking about the Mad Monk?” asked Jennie.

  Emery gave a dismissive snort. “Even for a ghost, that sounds ridiculous, like something out of a gothic novel. The Mysteries of Adolpho or something.”

  “Udolpho.” I took some pleasure in correcting him. His scorn made me reckless. Even without ghosts in my room and an eleven-year-old ghost hunter in the back of my head, it was hard to resist piecing the story together. Like I’d told Caitlin, there had to be some logic to it. “And it’s not so ridiculous. Texas had plenty of monks in its Spanish colonial days.”

  Lucas nodded, in the spirit of the mystery. “Explorers looking for gold for the Mother Church. Missionaries here to civilize the natives.”

  “Like Coronado,” said Phin. “Still searching for his lost city of gold.”

  “Except that Coronado died in Mexico,” Lucas pointed out. “Though I suppose he could have come back in the afterlife. Do ghosts have to worry about transportation?”

  “But Coronado wasn’t a monk,” said Jennie, mirroring Phin’s posture and enthusiasm. Mark, Lucas, and Dwayne leaned in, too. Caitlin looked reluctantly interested, though Emery was trying to appear above it all.

  “Were there missions this far north?” Mark asked.

  Lucas made a “so-so” gesture. “The largest and most successful ones were farther south, along the Guadalupe, and east, up near the Neches. The soil here wasn’t really good for sustaining agriculture, so most of the missions in this area failed. Or met a more violent end. You mentioned San Sabá. That’s not far from here.”

  “Wasn’t there a mine or something associated with San Sabá?” asked Phin. “Ghosts are often guarding a treasure.”

  The word struck a chord of excitement around the table, everyone caught up in the possibility for the space of a held breath.

  Then Emery broke the spell. “Oh my God,” he said, equal parts exasperated and disgusted. “You all watch too many movies.”

  The gang laughed, breaking the runaway-train tension.

  Phin’s suggestion had startled me, too, but for different reasons. Mac McCulloch had mentioned treasure but I hadn’t had a chance to tell Phin about that. Although, like she said, folklore was full of ghosts unwilling to leave their riches unprotected.

  “This elective turned out to be way more interesting than I thought,” said Dwayne. “It’s like an episode of that Bones show or something.”

  “Good grief,” said Emery, in the same disgusted voice. “Thanks to television, our classes are full of dilettantes who think the field is all sexy anthropologists solving crimes and flirting with FBI agents.”

  “I take exception to your point,” said my sister, in a debate-club sort of tone that, intentional or not, amused the hell out of me. “Mark is clearly sexy, and clearly an anthropologist.”

  When he recovered from choking on his beer, Mark said, “Thanks, chica, but I don’t know any FBI agents.”

  “I’m applying to the FBI,” Jennie assured him, “and I’d flirt with you.”

  “And Caitlin’s no dog, either,” said Dwayne, and Lucas raised his bottle in agreement. Caitlin rolled her eyes, but I caught her laughing as she sipped her beer.

  “Very funny,” said Emery, with no jealousy, I’m sure. “But you’ve completely missed my point.”

  I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook, because for one thing, it was steering the conversation away from ghosts. For another, what kind of snob uses “dilettante” in a sentence without irony?

  “I get your point,” I said, “but I read somewhere that the number of female students in the hard sciences has gone up across the board, and a lot of people credit the geek chic on TV.”

  “Let me guess,” said Emery, looking down the table—and his nose—at me. “You’re a science major?”

  “Pre-med,” I confirmed, with a bit of a challenge in my voice. “And Phin is majoring in chemistry and physics.”

  I realized, as their heads turned to my sister, that I might have opened a can of worms, talking about Phin’s studies. But I was proud of her, even if she chose to express her genius in an unconventional way, and Emery’s attitude pissed me off.

  “Chemistry and physics?” echoed Mark, clearly impressed.

  “Well,” Phin said modestly, “they’re not entirely unrelated.”

  “Were you inspired by CSI?” Emery’s sneer earned him a glare from Jennie and Caitlin.

  Phin answered him literally, of course. “It was Ghost Hunters, actually.”

  They laughed, as if she were joking, which she wasn’t. I groaned—silently. This is why I can’t take her anywhere.

  “Then why not parapsychology or something?” asked Emery, who probably would have mocked her no matter what she said.

  Phin looked at him as if she couldn’t believe he would ask such a stupid question. “Because I’m not interested in the psychospiritual nature of the paranormal. I’m interested in the physical and measurable aspects.”

  Jennie seemed delighted to have Emery put in his place. “I get it. Like how on those shows, they use gadgets to measure things like cold spots, electromagnetic energy, that kind of thing.”

  “Exactly.” Phin nodded. “Though my concern is not only hauntings but all paranormal phenomena: ESP, mediums, spellcraft of various traditions. Only, no accredited university offers a degree in preternatural science. So—” She shrugged. “Chemistry and physics.”

  “All the double majors I know,” said Emery, again with that tone, “are taking summer school.”

  She answered a lot more calmly than I would have. “I’m doing two online classes and an independent study project. It’s based on the work of Semyon Kirlian in the 1930s, capturing the image of the corona electrical discharges of an object when laid on a photostatic plate subjected to a certain voltage.”

  When Emery’s only response was a baffled blink, Jennie laughed. Dwayne, searching for the joke, asked, “Care to translate that for the business major?”

  Mark gave him a wry look. “I didn’t get half of that, either, dude.”

  Phin waved off their confusion. “It’s not important. I’m merely basing my work on that principle. The coronal aura visualizer measures the energy aura of objects in response to metaphysical energy rather than electricity.”

  “This is the thing you mentioned this afternoon?” asked Mark.

  “Yes. I’m curious whether anomalies underground might appear as coronas in the surface vegetation.”

  That actually didn’t sound too crazy, especially for something from Phin. Smoking chemistry labs and blown fuses aside, her gadgets did usually work, once she got the bugs out. And considering she was doing things that no one—that I knew of, anyway—had ever done before, some bugs were to be expected.

 
I began to hope we’d get through the Gadget Girl Show without mentioning anything too out-of-bounds. But then Caitlin asked, “What do you mean, metaphysical energy?”

  Don’t do it, Phin. I tried to send her psychic messages—as if I had suddenly developed a previously nonexistent skill in that area. Don’t say it.

  But of course she did. “Oh,” she said, in a no-big-deal voice, “everything from ordinary high emotion to psychic events—ghosts, spells, things like that. I’m particularly interested in the herbomancy potential.” At their blank looks, and before I could do anything to stop her, she clarified, “Plant magic.”

  Oh hell. My insides in knots, I gripped the table and contemplated whether I could fake a medical emergency to save us from laughter and ridicule. They’d probably ignore what she’d just said if I could manage a convincing heart attack.

  But this was Phin. In the months she’d been away at school, I’d forgotten how she could make the most out-there statements seem no worse than eccentric.

  Mark scratched his chin. “You think this might be able to image disturbances underground?”

  She nodded. “It’s possible, if there’s some kind of stimulus.”

  “Oh for crying out loud,” said Emery, and flopped into the booth corner to sulk.

  Dwayne gave me a bit of a wink, unaware of my incipient mostly fake heart attack. “Is that how you found the skull, Amy?”

  “Lila found it,” I said automatically.

  “I think she did a spell by accident,” said Phin, because she always had to go there.

  His grin turned teasing. “Do you do a lot of magic spells?”

  “No,” I answered emphatically.

  “That’s true,” said Phin. “Amy prefers to operate in a more mundane world than the rest of our family.”

  Jennie asked, “So is your family … what do you call it? Wiccan?”

  “Good grief, no,” said Phin. “We’re all Lutherans.”

  They laughed, and I slumped back on the hard wooden bench, letting the raucous country music wash over me along with my relief. I should have been furious with Phin for saying these things. Whatever immunity she had, whether it was personality or some kind of inherent magic, the safety net around her words didn’t extend forever. Outside her sphere of influence, who knew what this would set off? I only knew I’d be the one dealing with it.

  But today I couldn’t throw stones. I was seriously losing my objectivity. My job was to keep the Goodnight eccentricities inside and the scary real-world judgments outside. How could I do that when I kept losing my footing on the fence?

  “You know what we should do?” said Dwayne. “Go look for the ghost.”

  I sat up so quickly, I kicked someone under the table. “Hang on,” I said.

  “That’s a great idea!” said Jennie. Was she naturally that enthusiastic, or was it happy hour talking? Either way, the bad ideas kept on coming. “We can use the corona vision thing. It will be awesome.”

  “Coronal aura visualizer,” Phin corrected her.

  “You guys aren’t serious,” said Caitlin, then to Mark and Lucas, “Tell me you’re not buying into this idea.”

  Lucas took a swig of his beer. “Not until after some food, at any rate.”

  Why wasn’t Phin saying anything? I expected her to grab her oar and start paddling us up this creek of crazy.

  And even more important, why wasn’t I saying anything? I needed to put the brakes on this, but I couldn’t seem to form the words.

  Mark said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing if Phin’s invention does show any disturbances underground. I mean, anything that would make digging easier.”

  “Come on,” said Dwayne, flashing a game-for-anything grin. “We can video it and maybe get on a TV show.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Phin repressively. “I don’t intend to prostitute my scientific integrity on YouTube.”

  Mark laughed, and Emery said, “I’m glad someone is holding on to their scientific integrity.”

  “It’s just an experiment,” Mark said, then drained his beer. “But Lucas is right. Not on an empty stomach.”

  They kept talking, but I’d stopped listening. My knuckles ached from grasping the table like the safety bar on a roller coaster. My stomach felt like it was on the same ride. Sweat dampened the back of my neck and prickled along my ribs.

  This is a terrible idea. I fixed the sentence in my mind but couldn’t make myself say it. It was like someone had turned up the dial on my cognitive dissonance to eleven, until I was paralyzed between one option and another, right brain and left brain.

  Only that wasn’t it, either. I knew what I wanted. I wanted my family to stay safe and under the radar. I didn’t want the McCullochs to sue Aunt Hyacinth for delaying the building of their bridge. I didn’t want them to make life so miserable for Aunt Hy that she couldn’t stay in the stone farmhouse with Uncle Burt. So where was this conflict in my brain coming from? Amy the eleven-year-old ghost hunter? Or Amaryllis the unmagical daughter of a magical family, suddenly unable to break Goodnight tradition?

  Dammit, I was stronger than both of them. I took a breath, and a figurative leap, and blurted, “I think that’s a terrible idea.”

  Everyone at the table looked at me. Hell, it felt like the whole bar looked at me, though a quick peek assured me the music and drinking and flirting continued without interruption.

  So had the conversation in our scarred wooden booth. They’d been talking about something else entirely, and now they all stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

  Way to stay under the radar, Amy.

  Mark cleared his throat and leaned across the table, lowering his voice. “So, it’s not okay with you if Ben joins us? Because if it’s not, you’d better say so fast.”

  I glanced around, found various expressions of amusement and disapproval from the gang, and Phin studying me, and Caitlin staring at me like some kind of insect. Freshmanicus tactlessicus.

  When my gaze returned to Mark, he bit back a smile—a sympathetic one, but still—and pointed behind me.

  12

  i could not catch a break from Ben McCulloch. Even when he wasn’t personally giving me grief, the timing of his arrival made my awkward word-vomit even worse than it was.

  Ben had spotted our table from across the bar and headed our way. He’d cleaned up, and it looked great on him. Not too neat, though. His dark blond—or light brown, I hadn’t decided—hair was mussed, his collared shirt un-tucked from his unpretentious jeans. Somewhere behind me, sounding far away, I heard Caitlin explaining that she’d invited him to join us, though she probably meant join her, and I didn’t think she’d be wrong, because when Ben McCulloch saw me his steps stuttered just a little before he continued through the jostling crowd.

  Or maybe someone had stepped on his foot, I didn’t know.

  I only knew that it was one thing too many. The roadhouse had filled up, and the buzz of voices joined the blare of music from the speakers pounding in my ears and splitting my head. The roller coaster hadn’t stopped, it had just taken a bone-jarring turn.

  “I’m going to the restroom,” I said, and zipped out of the booth without meeting anyone’s eye, not caring—much—that Phin, crazy gadget and all, was looking like the picture of sanity compared to me.

  The restrooms were on the other side of the bar. I should have skirted the edges of the room instead of going straight through the crowd in the middle, where the drinking and flirting was a little rowdy and the music was loud enough to drum out conscious thought. I ducked between two big guys who were both intent on a single girl, right as another guy turned, his hands full with two brimming plastic cups of beer.

  I ran right into him. Or he ran into me. I was a little unclear on the details, except that we both tried to occupy the same space at the same time and I was suddenly drenched in beer.

  A lot of beer. And the sign over the bar did not lie. That was some ice-cold draft.

  The shock of it stilled the ping-ponging of my
thoughts, at least. I think Beer Guy cursed, but nothing registered past the chill and the smell of hops and the drip of foam from my hair. A spot cleared in the crowd as people edged away from the swearing and the mess, staring at him, at me, and—oh hell—my soaked white T-shirt. Was I going to get through one day without showing the whole county my bra? “Are you okay?”

  The question did not come from Beer Guy. It was a familiar voice, deep and close to my ear so he didn’t have to yell. All things considered, Ben McCulloch’s appearance, as if out of thin air, didn’t surprise me at all.

  “Your friend needs to watch where she’s going,” said Beer Guy.

  Ben had taken a protective hold of my upper arm. I drew a breath, ready to fight my own battle, but by his cutting stare, it was pretty clear he had his own beef with the guy.

  “Accidents happen, Joe,” Ben said coldly. “And I don’t see you covered in Budweiser.”

  Joe certainly seemed dry, as far as I could tell in the neon light. The two cups in his hands were mostly empty, and what beer I wasn’t wearing had already soaked into the rough wood floor.

  “I’m out two beers,” he said.

  Ben reached into his pocket, pulled out a bill without looking at it, and dropped it into one of the plastic cups. “Have a pitcher on me.”

  I didn’t think it was possible for the guy to look any angrier, but at the sight of the twenty soaking in that inch of beer, his eyes narrowed to slits of cold loathing. “Good luck with your bridge, McCulloch. Must be tough with the Mad Monk sending people to the hospital. Hope you have some ranch hands left by the time you’re done.”

  The only sign of Ben’s anger was the tension in the hand on my arm. His expression was coolly composed, which I realized, because I’d seen it a lot, meant he was really angry. “Thanks for the concern, Joe. If I’m still hiring before you’ve found a job, I’ll let you know.”