Seconds trickle by like sentences of execution, and Bobby Cross--the man who killed me once, and would do it again, given half a chance--is gone.
***
"Deliver me from Bobby Cross," I whisper, and turn to face Chris, who is staring at me with confusion bordering on terror.
"I'm dead," he says.
"Yes," I agree. It seems like the safest option, just now.
"I'm dead."
"Yes." I gesture toward the wreckage of his car. "Bobby caused an accident, and you were in his way. I'm sorry."
"Is this your fault? Could you have stopped this?"
For once, I'm grateful to know the answer. "No," I say, and offer my hands. "I couldn't have stopped it. All I could do was be here when the crash happened, so that I could be the one to get you home."
"Home? But I'm dead."
"There are a lot of kinds of home, Chris." I slip my hands into his. His skin is cool--the dead are always cool--but he lacks the chilling, killing cold of Bobby Cross. I suppose that gift is reserved for the men who've sold their souls. "Now come on. You ever hot-wired a car?"
"What? No."
"Good. Then we can begin your death with a little education."
***
Only one car in the crash was loved enough to leave a ghost behind, a battered pick-up truck that seems to be healing by the second, the years wiping away like so much dust. Six more ghosts come out of the wreckage, all confused and shaken and uncertain of the rules that bind them now. I scan their faces, labeling them without really thinking about it--hitcher, homecomer, phantom lady. Emma can sort them out, help them decide who needs to move on and who wants to find a place in the endless arms of the midnight America.
I twist the wires until the truck gives a purring roar of acceptance, ready to drive us wherever we need to go. I give the crowd one last scan, and say, "I'm Rose Marshall. Some of you may have heard of me--they call me the Lady in the Diner." Murmurs, and shocked expressions. Sometimes it's good to have a reputation. "Now, you can come with me, or you can stay here. I have to warn you that the man who caused this accident may come back, and if you stay, you're on your own."
"Where are you taking us?" shouts one brave shade, somewhere in the crowd.
I allow a smile, feeling the tattoo burn my skin. Chris stands by the passenger side door, ready to let me drive this time. "I'm taking you home," I answer, and that's the truth, that's all the truth they'll ever need. I'm taking them home.
They climb in one and two at a time, these new ghosts of the road. I slide behind the wheel, pat the dashboard for luck, and whisper, "Oh Lord, who art probably not in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Oh Lady, deliver me from darkness, deliver me from evil, and deliver me from Bobby Cross."
"What?" asks Chris.
I shoot him a smile. "Nothing," I say. "Nothing at all." The wheel fits easy in my hands, and we roll forward, out of the daylight, down into the dark.
Last Dance with Mary Jane
A Sparrow Hill Road story
by
Seanan McGuire
Well, I don't know but I've been told
You never slow down, you never grow old
I'm tired of screwin' up, tired of goin' down
Tired of myself, tired of this town
Oh my my, oh hell yes
Honey, put on that party dress.
Buy me a drink, sing me a song
Take me as I come 'cause I can't stay long...
Last dance with Mary Jane
One more time to kill the pain
I feel summer creepin' in
And I'm tired of this town again...
-- "Last Dance with Mary Jane," Tom Petty.
There have always been waystations on the roads of the dead, places where the spirits and psychopomps can stop and rest a little while before continuing to their final destinations. They're necessary, especially given that so many psychopomps are dead themselves. Follow that road too far, and they lose the ability to turn back. So taverns and temples spring up along the most common routes into whatever lies beyond the ghostroads; boarding houses and hotels, cathedrals and cloisters...and in this modern age, truck stops, diners, and seedy little bars with sawdust on their floors. They teeter on the edges of here and there, and even the living can find their way into those in-between places, if they get lost enough, if they need it badly enough.
Everyone's waystation is different, determined by what they were in life. Most of the souls I shepherd along were drivers, with a spattering of vagabonds, hitchhikers, and people who were just walking home--people, in other words, who were traveling under their own power. I only get passengers when they come with a driver. I guess that's because, as a hitcher, I don't relate well to people who let someone else make the decisions about where they'd be when the journey was finished. It may not seem like hitchers have much agency, but we do, really; we decide which cars to get into, we decide which destinations to name. It's not the same degree of agency that goes to the drivers, but it's enough for us.