Chapter 2

When I came to, I could see again, although the place was so dark that it might be hard to call it seeing. Rather, I was coherent enough to know I could see if given the opportunity. After the fuzzy feeling of unconsciousness melted away, flecks of ebony sky became visible through the cracked glass pattern of the dense mass of vacillating tree branches and leaves above me. Stars were missing, suggesting that thick clouds had finally rolled in. I was lying on my back and I closed my fists against the ground, finding rich soil that came up easily.

What the hell had happened? Where ... Where had she gone? Slowly, I sat up. I was alone, and a quick feel-about revealed a pile of clothes nearby. A tree-filtered flash of lightning finally gave me a snapshot of the scene. I was sitting between two bonfires that were ashen, the rings of which were still warm. So I was naked. Was that encounter with the spirit not a dream, then? Surely it was a whiskey-infused bender that had put me into this peculiar position. It was not the first time I had awoken in a strange place under strange circumstances with still stranger memories. I pulled the silver flask from my overalls, but found it almost completely full. I let out out a laugh. Well, if the drink had not put me in this situation, the drink would surely be necessary to get out of it. I took a long slug, and a second.

I have to find her... With surprising lucidity, I found myself rapidly donning my shoes and overalls, not wasting time with the rest of the getup. Then I was hurrying down the path through the woods, until I emerged into that God-forsaken maze again. I grunted in frustration. Hours of tedious walking through what sounded like imminent rain was going to be rather anti-climactic.

Ah, but there was an ear of corn on the ground! I examined it closer, as it seemed to be phosphorescent in the low light. It was pointing left, the way I had come from earlier when I had found the secret path. I didn't remember setting this one as part of my scheme of crumbs. Perhaps it was just a fallen, wayward ear. I set off in that direction anyway, knowing I could use my marking system to follow the butt ends of any single ears to trace the way out. Well, not quite, but certainly closer to the entrance than I would get by going the other way.

A funny feeling began to take shape in my thoughts as I reached intersection after intersection, finding all the corn ears I had so carefully placed now removed, save for one. These solitary stragglers were pointing forward. I didn't even question them after the first few forks seemed to be correct. Whether it was for my benefit or not, someone had marked the pathway for me.

Within ten minutes and spattered by spitting rain, I had emerged into the Jeffersons' open field again, taking a deep breath of air as the oppression of the maze started to dissipate. A riot of dragonflies was startled by my untoward appearance and noisily rallied around me for a moment before zipping away to take shelter. There was a final ear of corn lying on the worn patch of grass that had all day been hammered by the impatient stomping of maze goers forced to wait in place as young Jeremiah staggered their entry to avoid clogging. The ear pointed the only place it could.

I hurried across the field as the rain began to fall in earnest. The storm had not held off long enough, and by the time I reached the doors of the barn the massive water bombs had completely soaked me through. With a noisy heave, I had the door open and I slipped into the warm dry interior, shutting out the elements with a grateful bang. Standing a moment to catch my breath, my first instinct was to reach for the flashlight but I decided against it. Last time it had been my undoing.

"I'm here," I said, quietly but also a bit nervous that there would be no reply.

"Hi, James." Again her voice was up in the loft.

"I promise I won't turn on the light this time. Just don't run away again, please?"

"I didn't run away," she replied.

"Who are you?"

"I'm surprised to hear you say this."

"I'm sorry, but this is all very strange. Interesting, yes, but I wonder if I'm not the butt of a prank."

"Why did you come back here, then?" she asked. "You could have just gone home."

"I came to find you. You must have set out the corn arrows, so I figured that you wanted me to come."

"And now that you've found me?"

"I want to see you. To know you," I pleaded.

"I already gave myself fully to you. Earlier."

I froze as her words hit me. "In the ring of fire?" I asked slowly. "You mean that was you? That was real?"

"As real as could be, James. So what else could you want, now that you've had me so completely?"

Her confirmation was astonishing. What person would do this? Why me? What crazy ritual had I stumbled on?

"That ... That was so intense, but not nearly enough!"

"It was magical," she agreed softly. "But nothing might ever be as magical again."

"Why not?"

"Best to remember tonight, revel in it, and go forward with our lives. A chance meeting for a few hours, and nothing more."

I had to fight off the urge to reach for the light as she spoke.

"Who are you?" I asked again. "Do I know you?"

There was a pause. "You've seen me before."

I cast about, trying to remember everything that had happened this day, this month, my whole life.

"Were you at the sorority party?"

A slight hesitation, but the answer came firmly. "Yes."

I narrowed the parameters of my search, but could not pin the voice to anyone I had seen there. If only I'd been more observant and less critical earlier, I might have had a sense of what was happening now.

"Why are we here, then?" I finally asked.

"We always end up here. I've..."

I heard a sigh, and I waited patiently.

"I've been watching you play in here for years. And you me, if you really remember. I was standing right where I am now, the last time you saw me."

My heart started pounding as I began to see those old glimpses of ghosts in the barn. The flash of a dress hem, a wisp of hair ... Those corner-of-the-eye moments were all so similar. And other memories came back. Twin fiddles played in my ear. A beautiful girl standing by the upper window, open, inviting ... Mr. Jefferson, entering with a gun...

"Where are you?" I managed to ask.

"I'm in the loft, of course."

"Where, exactly?" I pressed.

"By the window."

"And what are you wearing?"

"A long white dress, with a flowered hem. It w-was your favorite." Her voice was tangled up with emotion now.

I felt my legs trembling, and I stepped back to brace myself against the doors. It was simply not possible. I tried to speak, but no words came. Fear gripped my heart as crazy thoughts mused about the onset of insanity. Was this how it began? A ghost ... Was this a haunted barn? One big dream? When would I wake up?

"Do you remember, James?" she whispered.

I still could not speak. My rational brain fought to regain control, and finally it started to win. It was nonsense, of course. This was a joke, a cruel trick played on me by Jeremy, for leaving the party early and generally being a boring old introvert. Someone had clearly been told of past events that I thought were buried away, and now they were trying to use it against me as a nasty Halloween prank.

"Did Jeremy put you up to this?" I cried.

"I think you know who I am."

"Stop! I don't believe you!"

"Do you not believe in ghosts?" she asked.

"No! And this has to be the cruelest joke." Madness, to be accurate. "I don't think you understand what you are doing! Whatever trick you are playing, it is not without pain!"

"I know. So ask me the questions you know will satisfy you," she challenged.

I knew what I could ask, but now I was afraid to hear the answer. What if she could answer them correctly? Then the world would get even weirder. I swallowed hard, and went straight to the heart of it.

"What did you give me that day?"

The answer came immediately, without hesitation and with obvious and deep meaning. "An ebony violin tuning pin, with the button carved into a heart shape and a mother-of-pearl star on the end."

Oh God...

"And what did I give you?" I whispered hoarsely.

"Maybe you should grab the flashlight," she urged, her voice tight.

I blindly made my way over towards the wall where I'd earlier left the flashlight standing and felt around on the narrow beam. My fingers found something small instead, and I picked it up carefully, my hands quivering. Despite being able to see absolutely nothing in the pitch black, the shape was unmistakable in my hands. It was a tuning pin and through the string hole was threaded the plain silver necklace I had once given to her. A roaring sound filled my ears as the barn seemed to press closer and then further, like an accordion box out of control.

"But ... B-but how?" I stammered. "This can't be happening!"

It was impossible! I had secretly buried the tuning pin at the foot of her gravestone long ago, with the hopes that the necklace was also there, resting peacefully a few feet below. The closest that they would ever come to being together, I figured. And now, they were intertwined here in my hand. No one knew where that pin was buried, deep within the world, nor its connection with the necklace...

No! This was someone who was playing an evil hoax on me. It was beyond what Jeremy was capable of. Some darker devil had concocted the blackness, the tomfoolery to make me believe. Was Jakob extracting his final revenge for his daughter's death? Was it her sister Jenny up there in the aerie? The voice was familiar, after all.

I felt the pin again. Was it heart-shaped? My fingers played tricks on me and I started to doubt. There were lots of heart-shaped pins in the world. The necklace could be a piece of polished rawhide for all I could steady my shaky hands.

"This can't be real!"

Suddenly, a yellow light illuminated the necklace, and I almost dropped it in fright. My eyes shot up to the loft where the flashlight had clicked on like a focused spotlight, but I could see nothing beyond, against the glare of it.

"You still have doubts, James?"

I looked back at the pin, in spite of the twisted feeling that was building within me. There was no doubt that our sacred pair of gifts had been impossibly rejoined. She was back. Whether alive or dead, I did not know, but it was her.

"Katie..." I whispered.

"So you do remember."

I spluttered. "Of course I remember! My God, but I don't understand! Are you a ghost?"

There was a small laugh. "You just said you didn't believe in them."

"I don't know what to believe, now that I have our necklace in my hand!" I cried.

"Maybe a little more quiet would serve us well, James. Remember the last time we were too noisy in this barn. It didn't end up so well for us."

I took a deep breath, trying to calm the fraying edges of my nerves. I fingered the pin, sliding the chain back and forth through it, as the rain continued to pelt the roof.

"Is it really you, Katie? The same Katie I loved back then?"

I heard a gasp. "I ... I don't know," she answered, surprise in her voice.

"What do you mean by that? State it plainly now: Are you Katie Jefferson?" I demanded.

"Yes..." she finally whispered.

The world shook as thunder cratered the air, and I found it impossible to inflate my lungs. I staggered around for a moment, wondering if I was to suffocate. At last, my head stopped spinning enough that I was able to find the vertical again, and my constriction eased slightly.

"If it's really you, then why are you here now, after so many years?"

"I couldn't wait any longer."

"I don't understand! Your parents, they said you ... you were in an accident. Where have you been?"

"I've been right here, watching you and your marvelous instrument grow. I know you played for me often after I left, at least until you stopped coming here."

Yes, it was true. I had always thought of her when I practiced in the old barn. It was impossible not to. Of course, this was the main reason I had decided to give up this space and take to the small studios at the conservatory. I'd thought that the past was holding me down. Now it was all coming back, and how! I wiped tears from my cheek.

"But why the maze, and the forest, and the..." I shuddered, the memory of our ecstatic episode, still fresh in my body. Had I really just been with Katie in that way? "Why the ring of fire? Was that whole ritual something you put together just to be with me?"

"No. That was a very old festival we visited tonight. Running for more years than the daytime Autumn Festival has, even. No, I just ... I used it as a way to get to you as best I could. Tonight is the only night when no one questions the costumes we always wear. I can come out of hiding and my mask will be nothing out of the ordinary. Ghosts like me are expected on Halloween. The rest of the year, not so much ... But mostly..." There was a period of silence. "Mostly I wanted to know what it was like to be with you, James. After all these years, you're still all I've thought of."

My insides were a knotted mess at her words. "Oh, Katie! But if you've been here all along, why haven't you shown yourself? Why did you hide from me for so many years? What did I do wrong? Did I break your heart?"

"No, James ... You saved it. And I am sorry for everything. But even now, I can't face you, which is why I seduced you in such a strange manner, and why you are still blind to me. After I leave tonight, I hope you'll just know me as a ghost, a beautiful ghost you shared an undying moment with. It doesn't even matter if I am real. Hold on to it forever, my love, but let go of everything else."

"You're leaving?" I cried, still staring at the blinding light, trying desperately to make out something behind it that would tell me she was real. Something to confirm that this was not in my head. "Why do you have to leave? I don't understand!"

"Some things are meant to be, and others are not."

"Don't say that!"

"Goodbye, James." Her voice was strangled. "I will always love you, but I will let you go now."

The light switched off, and I could see nothing but the bright echo of it, seared into my retinas.

"No!" I screamed. "Katie, wait!"

I stumbled around blindly but could not find the ladder. I soon realized she had probably moved it. The woody clanking sound of a plank falling against metal came from somewhere above me and echoed in the space. The window! I had to get out before she escaped through the pane and disappeared into the night again. I jammed my hand into the wall in my haste, and then slid along until I found the door, grasped the handle and heaved.

Nothing. After several attempts, I knew I had been locked in. She must have slid a beam into the track. I cursed in frustration. By the time I could have found a way up to the loft to dislodge the post, she'd be in the next county. I was sure that the side door would also be jammed. Escape was hopeless now, so I ran to the center of the barn.

"Katie! If you are still here, please stop! If you love me, if you have ever loved me, please! You don't owe me anything, but tell me the truth, and then you can go if you have to. I won't stop you then, I promise. Please... ! I promise you anything, just, don't go. Don't go..."

The only sound was of the rain, and my ragged breathing. I strained to hear something, anything that would tell me she had not already made her exit. A long time passed, and then I heard the faintest creak. She's not gone, I repeated fervently and silently to myself. There was a long pause, and then ... a breath. A breath!

Then she started to speak, her flat, disembodied voice haltingly unraveling the story of the past four years.

"After my dad sent me away to that school, my life was so desolate. I was incredibly miserable. To be ripped out of my home, my farm, and most of all away from my best friend and musical hero was a burden beyond what I can describe. The school was not foul, no, but there was no hope of contacting you. I don't fault anyone there. I was even managing to make some friends, against my desires to do so. But I missed ... everything so much. But mostly you, James. Mostly you."

How I longed to leap up to the loft and comfort her with my arms! I dared not move, though, except to caress the still-clutched violin pin with my thumb.

"But the school was not the worst of it," she continued, her voice drawing inwards even further as she approached some terrible milestone. "I would have settled for this new life for a few more years. I could wait out the suspension, bide my time until I was freed from the prison of my age and found my way back to you, if you were still to be found. I was ready to do that, and I decided that I had to get word to you, so you could also know that you had the choice to wait for me to return. My new friends arranged for my escape for a short time, just enough to make a run for the mailbox and back. So I did..."