Play Dead

Chapter 12

Enrique and Flora watched as Strata Luna nailed a small cross made of wooden Popsicle sticks to the trunk of a tree. On the double headstone that marked her daughters' graves, she poured the loose incense she used to communicate with the dead. After a brief sizzle and flame, the pungent odor of saltpeter and herbs filled the gathering darkness.

It was late. After closing time. The caretaker of Bonaventure Cemetery had unlocked the gate so Strata Luna could visit the graves in private.

Enrique nudged Flora with his elbow. "Come on," he whispered.

They turned and walked away from the woman cloaked in black.

In all the times Enrique had been coming to the cemetery with Strata Luna, he'd never witnessed anything weini-and didn't want to. The dead could stay dead as far as he was concerned. He once thought he'd seen someone return from the grave-and his heart had nearly popped through his chest. But then he discovered the person had never really been dead in the first place.

He hated the dead. But the undead…?

Whole different story.

Strata Luna was practically a mother to Flora. To Enrique, quite a bit more…

He suspected Flora knew he sometimes joined Strata Luna in her bed. Not that the woman in black cared much for him. He doubted she'd ever really cared for any man except the root doctor, Jackson Sweet. No, Enrique was just performing a service.

He wasn't complaining.

Strata Luna thought he was somebody she could teach and mold. Thought she had him under her control, but she was mistaken. Nobody controlled Enrique Xavier.

There were things about him she didn't know. Things Flora didn't know. He had a life outside Black Tupelo and Strata Luna. A secret life.

"I'm cold," Flora whispered. "Mosquitoes are biting me."

Enrique rubbed her bare arm, causing friction. "You're the one who wanted to come," he reminded her.

Unlike Enrique, Flora was drawn to death. She liked to explore cemeteries, and she'd been on every single Savannah ghost tour more than once.

"Don't give me that shit, Enrique. You wanted me here."

He laughed-a little nervously.

It was true. He didn't like roaming around in the cemetery by himself while Strata Luna practiced her communion with the dead.

Flora tugged on his shirt. "Let's go see Grade."

Darkness had fallen like a shroud, and her face was hardly more than a blur. He pivoted and walked in the opposite direction. "No way, man. I ain't gonna go see Grade."

"Come on," she pleaded in a voice that always weakened him. "I want to see her."

Gracie was famous. She'd died over a hundred years ago, when she was six. There was a life-size statue of her somewhere. To the left? Right? He always got all turned around in Bonaventure.

A lot of people claimed to have seen little Gracie wandering around the cemetery, which was one of the reasons Enrique had asked Flora to come along. If he ran into Gracie, he didn't want to be alone.

"Don't talk about her," he whispered. "She'll hear and you'll draw her to us." And with Strata Luna over there, holding the door between this world and the next wide open, no telling who might show up.

Flora scampered away. "Gracie!" she called. "Oh, Gracie!"

Enrique ran and grabbed her, putting a hand over her mouth.

They'd known each other for years, and were like brother and sister. "Shut up\" he hissed against her cheek. Her hair smelled like flowers.

Flora pried his hand away. "Shhh. Listen," she said, laughter still in her voice. "Did you hear that?"

"What?"

"Something moving."

Enrique straightened in the thick darkness, his eyes and ears straining. Up high, against the sky, he could make out dark curtains of dangling Spanish moss. Lighter objects near the ground were tombstones and cemetery statues.

He hoped none were Gracie.

Damn Flora.

He heard a sound in the distance that made the hair on his scalp stand up and his heart begin to hammer.

Was that a little kid? Talking? Laughing?

That's what it had sounded like. A little kid.

Oh, man.

What was he doing here?

"Don't you two have any respect for the dead?" came Strata Luna's angry voice out of the darkness, no footsteps to announce her arrival. "Fighting and laughing and carrying on. You should be ashamed."

Guilty, they both fell as silent and sober as chastised children.

"Let's go back to the car," Strata Luna said. "And hope you haven't caused my calling-up-the-dead spell to go bad and curse us all."