She could feel the muscles in the back of her neck bunching up the closer they got to the small downtown cemetery where Brooke Johnson had been buried. Grady must have mistaken her anxiety for grief-over the loss of her invented friendship with Brooke-because he’d stopped bothering her with his constant stream of small talk once they rounded the bend on the winding riverside road.
But for once, Violet had the opportunity to do something useful with her ability, and she refused to shirk that obligation.
The heavy, black, wrought-iron fencing came into view as Grady made the final left-hand turn toward the cemetery.
Violet was surprised when they reached the entrance and she hadn’t yet felt, or rather sensed, anything from within the gated walls. She worried that maybe she’d been wrong about all of this. That maybe this was similar to what happened with the animals she’d discovered in the woods, when their individual echoes seemed to vanish into a nearly imperceptible static noise once she’d reburied them in her own personal graveyard.
And if it was just static, maybe she wouldn’t be able to distinguish Brooke Johnson’s echo from the rest.
Grady pulled the car into a small lot and turned off the deafening engine.
When she stepped out of the car, Violet was immediately immersed in an electric crackling. It was all around her, only slightly different from the staticky hum she’d become accustomed to in her own improvised graveyard…but definitely there nonetheless. The tension in her neck was back, and she braced herself for a sensory onslaught.
Grady couldn’t hear a thing.
He rounded the car and walked quietly beside her as they began to wander, little by little, through the rows of headstones and grave markers. Small American flags sprang up from the ground in several spots, and Violet was careful not to disturb any of the homemade memorials that filled the cemetery with vibrance and color, taking on a life of their own.
“Do you know where she’s buried?” he asked, his voice acquiring a somber quality, echoing the solemn atmosphere of the cemetery that stretched out before them.
She didn’t know. For some reason, Violet hadn’t even considered that it might be a problem finding the girl’s grave; she’d just assumed that she would know where it was…that she would somehow sense Brooke’s location among the others buried here. She shook her head in answer to his question.
“That’s okay,” Grady said, taking it in stride, and suddenly Violet felt like she was with her old friend again. She’d missed him. “We’ll just walk around until we find it,” he reassured her.
Violet supposed he was right; it shouldn’t be too hard. It was a small cemetery, taking up less than a few square blocks. But when she looked out at the sea of headstones, many covered with flowers and balloons, she was amazed by how many grave sites seemed to fit into the relatively small space.
Violet soon realized that the white noise wasn’t just static after all. As she concentrated, trying to find her way toward Brooke Johnson, she could feel fluctuations in the energy of it. She took a deep breath, trying to relax herself enough so that she could work on separating one energy from another.
There were definitely echoes of the murdered here.
She heard a shrill explosion of fireworks somewhere very nearby, and she flinched, turning nearly full circle to see where it had come from. The crisp crackling sounds were familiar, reminding her of hot July days and summertime picnics.
“What’s wrong?” Grady asked, eyeing her curiously.
Violet realized that she’d just separated her first echo from the others.
“Nothing,” she answered honestly as she moved in the direction of the sound. She needed to find where it had come from, hoping she’d gotten lucky and found Brooke already.
She stopped at a stone marker, with a bronze engraved faceplate that read:
EDITH BERNHARD
June 19, 1932-May 2, 1998
Adored Wife and Mother
The banging and popping sounds were so clear here, as Violet stood in front of the simple headstone, that she could almost smell the sulfurous smoke of fireworks that was conspicuously missing. She wondered about Edith Bernhard, dead at age sixty-five. She wondered who she was and how she’d died…and who she’d left behind. It wasn’t a natural death, not for Edith…not with her echo. But what then? Murder? Euthanasia for a woman sick and suffering? Suicide? Could suicide even leave an echo? Did Edith carry the imprint of her own murder?
“Did you know her?”
For a moment Violet had forgotten that Grady was still there, but he was standing right behind her now, reading the woman’s headstone over her shoulder. Somehow, Violet felt as if he was intruding on the dead woman’s privacy simply by being there.
“No. I was just looking,” she answered as she drew Grady away from the grave site.
They wandered around like that, Violet stopping abruptly at several distinct echoes that managed to unravel themselves from the rest. She stopped at the strong smell of coffee to read a marker for a man who had died in his early thirties…over forty years ago.
She had the feeling that every inch of her skin was being softly raked by a thousand downy feathers, making her pause at the site of an infant who had died just days after he was born…eleven years ago. Violet felt a sense of sadness as she thought about what might have happened to the baby to give him a tragic echo of his own, and she had to walk away, feeling uneasy and dissatisfied.
When she first heard the sound of the bells, they were so clear, so crisp, that she was sure they were part of the real world. She was certain that she must be near a clock tower, somewhere in the cemetery, as it chimed the hour. There was something hauntingly melodic about the sound, though, something too heartrending to be real. She glanced around her, sweeping a quick look over to Grady to see if he’d noticed it too.
Not surprisingly, though, there were no clocks to be seen, no towers, and from the look on Grady’s face it was clear that he hadn’t heard what she had.
It was an echo.
And more than that, Violet was certain that this was Brooke’s echo. Compelling and strong.
Violet brushed past Grady, consumed by the need to find the source of the bells.
It didn’t take her long. The musical chiming served as a beacon, making it easy to locate the grave. Fresh flowers cascaded down from the top of the headstone, avalanching onto the grass below. Silvery Mylar balloons, still suspended by the helium within, swayed back and forth in the autumn breeze. Violet had to bend over once she’d found the site to clear the mementos out of the way just so she could see the name on the marker.
It was her:
BROOKE LYNNE JOHNSON
Treasured Daughter
Beloved Friend
Just seeing the date of her birth, followed by that of her death, made Violet’s knees feel weak and unsteady, and she sank to the ground, ignoring the cool dampness that saturated her jeans. They had been so close in age, and had once lived so near each other. As comfortable with death as Violet had always been, this girl’s brutal murder was just too real to her.
She closed her eyes and listened to the bells. They resonated sweetly, reaching to her core, very nearly reaching her soul, the sound vibrating throughout her as it moved with a life of its own.
She memorized it.
It was an auditory echo. And it was still strong, not yet faded from the passage of time. Violet would be able to track it. She would recognize the sound anywhere. Anytime.
And the man who wore this imprint was oblivious to that fact.
She suddenly felt like the predator, carrying the most powerful weapon of all. Now she would become the hunter…and he, the hunted.
She waited only a few moments longer than she needed to, silently thanking Brooke for sharing this time with her…for sharing her heartbreakingly beautiful echo.
Grady was waiting for her at a respectful distance.