a reason to live(86)

It was then I realized Maxine was the smartest woman I’d ever met.

We were silent for a moment, staring at Maxine, then we looked at one another, wide-eyed.

“I think we should tell them we’re hunting a ghost so they can stand guard,” Mia blurted out.

“WHAT? NO!” Maxine cried out, shaking her head adamantly. “I said ‘once you realize,' I didn’t say start now. They’d stop us in a heartbeat, and I want to see if we can find the miner’s ghost.”

“But you just said—”

“I know what I said,” she ground out, grabbing hold of the door handle. “You can start tomorrow. Tonight, we’re on our own.”

She climbed out in a huff, mumbling, “Now they listen to me,” and slammed the door, putting a punctuation mark on her advice.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I’ve never known Maxine to be wrong. If she says start tomorrow, then we’ll start tomorrow,” Mia answered with a grin.

“Works for me,” Jenn agreed, “What about you?”

I shrugged. “I guess what they don’t know won’t hurt them. Let’s do this.”

With matching grins, we piled out and headed to the back of the Jeep to grab Mia’s backpack with our gear inside. We’d decided earlier to break into two groups so we could cover more ground. That’s where the radios came into play, for safety’s sake and the ability to communicate without having to hunt each other down.

I paired with Mia and we took the west end of the cemetery. Treading carefully around the headstones, we came upon the open grave we’d seen earlier. For curiosity’s sake, I looked inside the deep hole. It wasn’t neatly excavated, as you’d typically see with a backhoe, but looked as if someone had used a shovel.

“Any bodies?” Mia asked, looking over my shoulder.

“My guess is they haven’t finished yet. It’s not wide enough for a coffin. Or deep enough, for that matter.”

“If it’s a new grave, why is there a headstone?”

I hadn’t noticed the headstone because it was smaller and leaning away from the grave. I leaned over it and read the inscription. Madeline Goforth 1846-1902.

“Maybe they’re exhuming her?”

“It would explain why they used a shovel instead of a backhoe,” Mia mumbled. “They’d destroy the coffin.”

“I bet they’ve already dug her up and haven’t finished filling the hole.”

“Probably some slacker who forgot to finish. We should mention it to Jack so the hole can be filled.”

I turned and said in a haunting voice, “Maybe the ghost miner dug her up looking for his gold.”

Her eyes grew wider. “That isn’t funny.”

“You aren’t scared, are you?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll let you know if we see a ghost.”

I scoffed and grabbed her arm. I, for one, didn’t think we’d see anything except a raccoon scurrying across the yard looking for food.

The wind began to pick up, sending the trees rocking. As if on cue, to set the mood for a night of ghost hunting, an owl swooped down and landed on a branch just in front of us.

“Native Americans believe if you see an owl before nightfall, it’s a bad omen.”

“What kind of bad omen?”

The radio crackled to life, causing me to jump. The setting and now an owl with an omen added to my agitation.

“Seen anything?” Jenn asked.

I pulled out our radio and pushed the talk button.

“Just the open grave. You need to tell Jack to have the cemetery finish filling in the grave before someone falls in. It’s deep enough now you wouldn’t be able to climb out without help.”

“Finish filling it?”

“The grave belongs to a woman who died in 1902.”

Mia grabbed the radio from me and rattled off, “Sage thinks the ghost dug the hole looking for his gold. Also, an owl just planted itself on a tree limb right in front of us and is watching us with his beady little eyes. It’s a sign of impending doom.”

“Then get your cameras ready and keep a close eye on that grave,” she ordered in all seriousness.

“Impending doom?” The hairs on the back of my neck rose. For the past few hours, I’d almost forgotten about my stepfather. I looked at the owl. It stared back at me.

“What do you mean by impending doom?” I asked.

“Sometimes it means death. Sometimes it means life-altering decisions are made. But, for the most part, it means something bad is coming.”

“Something bad has already happened,” I pointed out.

“It’s just an old wives’ tale, Sage. I don’t actually believe it.”