The Ghost Seekers by Devon Taylor

Author:Devon Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

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“Treeny was my little girl.”

They were on the porch, the sun flashing its last tiny sliver at them. Whit was seated in one rocking chair, Basil in the other. The rest of them stood, bracing themselves against the chill that the evening air brought with it. They weren’t used to being able to feel the cold if they didn’t want to, but as long as they were manifesting themselves to talk to Whit, they had no other choice. Whit had brought out mugs of coffee for them all, though, and they held on to them with both hands, letting the steam warm their faces.

“She was my whole life, her and her mother,” Whit continued. He had a fresh cup of coffee himself, but it sat on the little table, untouched, as he spoke and stared out at the sun and the shadows that spilled across the barren cornfield, seeping between the broken stalks together but never quite mixing, like oil and water.

“What happened to your wife?” Rhett asked before he could stop himself. He was curious, thinking about his parents and what might have happened to them if he had been the only one to die in the car accident that night.

The edges of Whit’s mouth twitched. “After Treeny died, my wife wasn’t the same person. Treeny and I were close, but she and Genevieve—my wife—were best friends. They did everything together. Genny’s the reason Treeny was so smart. She taught her so much.” His eyes were more distant than ever, and now they looked bright and wet. “Never really understood what Genny saw in a goon like me,” he whispered.

Rhett and the others watched Whit, waiting. The only sound was a lone crow that had landed out on one of the dried-up stalks, pecking at it. After a moment, Whit laughed.

“Never answered your question, did I?” he asked Rhett, who could only hold on to his coffee and stare. Whit went on without any prompting. “As I said, my wife changed after Treeny passed. She’d always had this optimism, this hope. You could always see it there in her eyes. I used to call it her little spark. But after Treeny … Genny just couldn’t quite get her spark back. She blamed me, of course. I blamed me, so I couldn’t well blame her for blaming me, could I?” He paused, but not long enough for any of them to answer his question. “No. No, I couldn’t. So when she said she was leaving, I … I didn’t have the heart to try and stop her.”

The crow unfurled its dark wings and lifted into the air, like a living shadow.

Basil finally broke the silence, his voice still carrying its newfound American accent.

“If you don’t mind me asking, sir,” he said, “we never really found out what happened to Treeny. Not exactly. We were kids when she died, so our parents didn’t give us the whole story.”

Rhett continued to marvel at Basil, his strange understanding of how to approach the conversation with Whit, his ability to twist the truth into something useful.

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