Hanged Man

Continued from Three of Swords

I try to hold the sun inside the same way your mother did, like a talisman. I see her squeezing that ball of light so tight that it oozed over every inch of your childhood home; an aura of habitual happiness.

I kept your old dresser from 2nd St. and now it’s painted like Lemon Meringue. I know you’d hate it. But Shaw doesn’t seem to mind. He leaves little things for me to find: yellow pieces of paper with other people’s song lyrics, daffodils in wine bottles emptied the night before. He wants them to speak sweet things to me when he can’t write the words himself.

This morning we find each other in silence, watching the sunrise.

“It’s lovely,” I say. But the way that gold glitters reminds me how you’d always quote that book to explain tragedy. The guilt tastes like dust now, so dry and decayed. It makes me think about the moment of evaporation and dehydration; the moment a person becomes a husk.

Shaw drinks his coffee from a tall green mug. I stare until it blurs and quakes and sprouts like grass. When I blink, it’s the color of your eyes. But Shaw doesn’t look into the dark surface of his coffee like you did. His eyes bring me back.

“Just a few hours there and home later tonight,” I say, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Stay,” Shaw says. I know he means it like a promise, not a command. I smile and kiss him on the cheek. I don’t ask him to come with me. A new cd starts playing when I start the car and I look up at Shaw on the balcony. When he waves and smiles, I know he knows I’ve found his new mix.

From the interstate, the green exit signs remind me how close I am to you. It has been two years since we were here together. I remember that last time, the dark sky tinged with lights from the city; acid washed. I wore your old Syracuse University sweatshirt with the hole in the left sleeve, wrapped up in your dreams.

When I pull into the parking lot, the sky is bright and the breeze is cool. I wish I still had your sweatshirt now. But standing in front of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, I fall in line with everyone else. The church is old, built from beautiful stones, and the burdens of sinners. I stay to the left to avoid the arms of those I know best.

“May we be blessed in remembering,” the priest says.

You grab my hand and lead me from the churchyard, distancing us from headstones and mourners. Smoke dances as you light a cigarette, trying to tweak the tines of my shipwrecked soul; a petite pallograph.

“Tell me a story?” I ask and you smile.

“Lost my first tooth in first grade and it was brilliant. Really, it was,” you say. “I was chewing a cherry gum ball and it happened just like that, just like us.” You kiss me and I bite your lip to stop you. But I taste metallic bits, drinking you in to bring myself back to life.

“Look at them all,” you say. I’m not sure if you mean the people surrounding that distant grave or the tiny blue flowers that grow in this part of the cemetery. They make me think of that summer we spent blanketed in blue, surrounded by sky and chicory blossoms; believing in perfection. Because you were perfect then, even if you didn’t know it. Moss eyes. Dusk hair. Skin like spiced vinegar. You reminded me of the earth and the beginning of time.

“There’s falling from stupid shit,” you say. “Like bike seats and bed frames and billiard tables. And then, there’s this.”

“I know, Jess.”

You don’t need to tell me about the way you love me. I see it in the way you pick up a penny and flip it luck-side up in my hand. I squeeze it tight, trying to absorb you.

“Just in case,” you say. I know what you mean, even if I don’t say it back. For the moment, you are made of stories and secrets and simple things. You are mine again. This time, when you kiss me, I let you. Our lips crush the distance of the last two years. We are closer than we ever were.

“Nothing gold,” I say when you pull away.

“It’s already happened.”

“But what about us? What about falling? What about—”

I imagine you explaining in a letter, maybe writing through the back of my black dress: Love. You. Can’t. Couldn’t. Me. Sorry. Love. Love. Love. But you leave because you were never one for words.

I walk back for the rest of the service. They lower your body into the earth and they pray: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I make the sign of the cross. The memories fade, and with them, so do you.

Your mother stands beside your casket, so soft, ready to melt. She bears the marks of loss in tired eyes and slumped shoulders. She talks about the way you used to swing from boyhood branches and I taste her guilt like mine; pure and pungent. I think about what I would say to her, praying that a tight-lipped I’m sorry might grow to encompass everything I felt for you. But I know I am not the person your mother wants to hear those words from.

I call Shaw from the car. I wait for him to pick up the phone. You whisper, I miss you, from the backseat.

“He’s gone, you know? And I wrote this fucking thing, this letter, for him, and didn’t even read it. So he won’t know, because I never sent it. I--”

“I’m sure he knew, Gray,” Shaw says.

But I don’t. The not knowing fills the space between the three of us equilaterally.

“I wrote you something,” he says.

Shaw recites his haiku over and over like the chorus of a song:

Light burns from gold to

silver. It can’t stay. But I’ll

seal you in stardust.

On my way back to your grave, I fold the letter until I can’t anymore. I send my thoughts somewhere gold so they won’t live inside me. I leave them here with you.

Written by: Kayla King

Photograph by: Erin Notarthomas

Common Denominators

When we last saw Anna, she was battling a particularly difficult ghost who attacked her in a parking garage. The ghost came to Anna's attention through her client Suri, whom the ghost haunted for fourteen years, inhabiting a series of different men. With Suri recovering from the ghost's latest attempt on her life, Anna plans her next move.  Read the whole Anna the Extractor Series--"The Extractor," "Bury Their Own," "Beloved," "A Tremor in Your Name," and "Stress in the Workplace," and "Calling" (an introduction)--to learn more about Anna and her supernatural adventures.

Anna leans against the cement wall at the edge of Allen Park with one foot propped up and her hands stuffed in her jacket pockets. Detective Michael Cohen called her yesterday evening to set up an appointment to discuss some of the facts regarding her previous client, Suri. The police found Anna’s profession amusing to say the least; it’s not everyday you meet a chick exorcist. After a few questions and making sure she wasn’t an accomplice for Suri’s attempted murder, they let her go.

A man with light brown hair and glasses approaches her from the sidewalk, an obsessive shine to his dress shoes and a too-crisp look to his windbreaker.

“Miss Hirsch? I’m Detective…”

“Cohen. Yeah, I know. It’s not like all my best friends are cops,” Anna says.

They shake hands and make their way over to a wrought-iron bench, which felt freezing through Anna’s skinny jeans.

“I wanted to ask you a few questions about Suri Mathis, just to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

Anna does not make eye contact, but looks out at the river, breathing in the chill of an early morning. Detective Cohen clears his throat.

“Miss Mathis was your client, correct?”

“Listen, man. If you’re just going to ask me a bunch of questions that you already know the answer to…”

“Hey, I come in peace,” Cohen says, hands lifted in surrender.

Anna meets his gaze and folds her arms over her chest as she says, “She’s been haunted by the same ghost for fourteen years. She hired me to extract it.”

“And were you able to?”

“Not entirely.”

“Did Miss Mathis happen to mention any characteristics about her assailant? His lifestyle, habits, hobbies?”

“No.”

“What about her previous assailants? There have been at least thirteen others, I’m assuming.”

Anna shakes her head. “She only described her dad. She said he drank. A lot.”

Detective Cohen nods, pulling out a large envelope from inside his jacket. He reveals a handful of photographs depicting dead women, all having suffered from different forms of violence.

“These women died within the last two weeks. There isn’t a common denominator that makes them targets. We’ve detained five of the six assailants involved in their murders. And you know what, Miss Hirsch? They’re the ones with stuff in common.”

Anna frowns, brow furrowed.

“Each one suffered from temporary amnesia when they committed the crime.”

“I didn’t realize that was a thing…”

“At first, we thought they’d all been drinking, blacked out, and then killed their girlfriends, wives, daughters. It was especially compelling when alcoholism came up in some of their histories. But when the blood alcohol concentration wasn’t matching up, it made things a little strange. We couldn’t just call it domestic violence under the influence.”

Detective Cohen puts away the photographs and leans back, draping one arm over the back of the bench.

“Suri’s boyfriend didn’t remember trying to kill her,” Cohen continues. “Neither did any of the others with restraining orders. I checked.”

“So, you’re telling me that the police department is willing to follow a lead suggesting possession by ghosts?” Anna asks through a scoff.

“Well, not the department. Just me.”

Anna scratches the back of her head and sighs, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. Detective Cohen folds his arms over his chest and sighs.

“My dad beat my mom once when I was in high school. He’d never hurt her before. And he’d never been a drinker, but all of a sudden he couldn’t keep enough Icehouse in the fridge. One night, he just started wailing on her. I got between them and punched my dad square in the eye. My mom screamed his name and then...it was the strangest thing. It was like a light turning on. He didn’t know what he’d just done, only that it was horrible.”

“What’s his name?” Anna asks.

“Huh?” Cohen murmurs, wading through the memory.

“You said he came to when your mom screamed his name.”

“Oh. Yeah. Lucas. His name’s Lucas.”

“Fucking hell,” Anna breathes, standing up and pulling out her cigarettes.

“What’s wrong with Lucas?” the detective asks, startled by her reaction.

She turns on him with a cigarette dangling from her lips and says, “That’s the goddamn ghost’s name, Cohen. The one who’s been haunting Suri. Your dad snapped out of it because your mom said the ghost’s name. That’s the power. She cast him out.”

“Jesus. This is unbelievable.”

“Listen, man. You better start believing real quick if you want this shit to stop.”

Anna finally gets her cigarette lit and sucks in, closing her eyes like it’s saving her life. It’s supposed to be so simple. Get the ghost’s name. Ask what he wants. Give him what he wants. Collect the money. But Lucas is playing a game. He’s making men kill the women they love most in their lives, and they end up alone.

“Just like me,” Anna whispers, remembering what Lucas said when she encountered him last.

Detective Cohen watches her, a question forming on his lips.

“That’s what he said. ‘All alone, just like me.’ He’s reliving something,” she says. “He’s reliving what he did.”

“How do we make him stop?” Cohen asks.

“He’s raging. We’ve gotta calm him down. I’ve gotta talk to him, but I need him to trust me. If I can get him to show himself to me - to haunt me - then I can help him.”

“Anna, he’s a murderer. He doesn’t deserve help,” Cohen states.

Anna grabs the collar of his windbreaker and yanks Cohen toward her with her fists. She looks him in the eye, noses touching.

“Look, asshole. No one deserves anything. We don’t deserve mercy. We don’t deserve justice. But if you want women to stop dying, then I need to help him.”

“And what happens if you help him?”

“He’ll cross over,” Anna says, letting go and stepping back. “And then whatever god you believe in will deal with him.”

Written by: Natasha Akery

Photograph by: Nathan Mansakahn

A Tremor in Your Name

(continued from "Beloved" and "Bury Their Own")

Anna stands by the window, resting her head on her forearm propped up against the wall. Searching the backyard, she spots the noose that almost ended her client’s life and the little red stool that kept death at bay. The yellow police tape wrapped around the perimeter of the house quivers as rain begins to fall. Anna closes her eyes as the pattering resonates through the ceiling, recalling the boil of her blood when Lucas appeared by her side, a ghost that had possessed an innocent man and compelled him to attempt murder. Suri, her client, hired Anna to extract Lucas from her life. For fourteen years he has haunted her and taken control of men’s bodies in order to do her harm. While Suri recovers, Anna remains in this abandoned house with nothing more than a name to go by, but in her line of work, a name is all the power she needs.

She sits down on the floor in the center of the room and rubs the cross dangling from a chain around her neck. In the blink of an eye, a ten year old girl sits in front of her wearing an easter dress and a blue bow in her blonde hair. Lydia Marie is the ghost haunting her necklace, and her phantom sidekick. She tilts her head to the left and studies Anna’s face, furrowing her brow.

“What’s wrong, Anna?”

Anna smiles with just the right corner of her lips and shakes her head, “I’m trying to track someone down.”

“A ghost?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you can only see him if he lets you see him.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Lydia Marie wrinkles her nose and offers an impish grin. “But I can see him even if he doesn’t want me to.”

Anna looks up and mirrors the spectre’s expression. “Precisely. Lucas knows the rules; if I say his name, he has to come. You can be my lookout for when he decides to show up.”

“But how are you going to extract him? It doesn’t sound like he’ll be too interested in taking orders,” Lydia Marie says with some concern.

“He’s obviously got some unfinished business and it’s centered around Suri. A game of twenty questions is in order. If he gives me a motive, then I just need to provide him with a suitable substitution.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Anna doesn’t answer. Instead, she claps her hands and rubs her palms together, fighting the chill down her spine. “You ready?”

Lydia Marie nods, unsure at first, but gaining confidence with the prospect of helping Anna catch the bad guy. Anna imagines her lungs expanding in every direction as she inhales, then whispers.

“Lucas.”
                                                                                                  ***

Lydia Marie hides in the closet, peeking through the shutter-style slats with her hands over her mouth. The hair on the back of Anna’s neck stands on end and her skin prickles with the presence of another otherworldly being. She does not see Lucas pacing in front of her with his hands behind his back, grinning from ear to ear. She waits for Lydia Marie to signal her, but instead the young ghost passes suddenly through the closet doors with horror written in her eyes.

“What are you doing here? Where’s my father?”

Lydia Marie is all but shrieking, her spectral hands balling up into fists and tears welling up in her eyes. Lucas turns toward her, still invisible to Anna who is startled and jumps to her feet. He narrows his eyes as he searches his memory for who she is and recognition passes over his face.

“Ah, Lydia. I left your father long ago…”

Lydia Marie’s entire body trembles, her bottom lip quivering. “It was you! It wasn’t Daddy! It was you!”

Lucas pulls the corners of his mouth up into a smile and shrugs. “If that makes it easier for you to cope, my dear, but I didn’t make him do anything other than what he’d already considered himself.”

Anna, unable to hear Lucas, asks desperately, “Lydia Marie, what’s he saying? Ask him what he wants. Ask him why he’s doing this!”

“You’re a monster! I’m all alone because of you!”

Lucas chuckles, his hiss like poison. “You and your father, ripped apart. All alone. Just like me.”

Before Anna has a chance to confront him, the chill leaves her skin and she knows that Lucas has disappeared. Lydia Marie wraps her arms around herself and looks up at Anna, shaking her head from left to right.

“Before Daddy drowned me, there was always a man at the house. He would sit with my dad while he drank and watch him when he hit me. I never knew who he was. I thought he was Daddy’s friend, but I understand now. It wasn’t Daddy who hurt me. It was Lucas.”

Flesh and spirit, the two stand in silence. A dog barks in the distance as thunder rips through the rain.

“Anna, Lucas said Daddy and me are all alone just like him.”

Kneeling down in front of Lydia Marie, Anna meets her gaze and whispers, “Let’s go find your father.”

The ghost looks down at her feet and asks, “What if he doesn’t want to see me?”

Anna shakes her head and says, “Baby girl, I think he’s been dying to see you since 1962.”

Lydia Marie looks up and says, “I want Daddy to know I forgive him, that I know it’s not his fault.”

Anna realizes that this is the reason why her friend hasn’t been able to crossover. All this time Lydia Marie was wandering between worlds because she believed a lie, that her father never loved her. Reconciliation could be the very thing she needs to move on, a bittersweet notion once Anna considers that she would lose her. But this is why Anna entered this obscure line of work, to secure peace for both the living and the dead.

“Come on. Maybe we can track him down before dinner time.”

Written by: Natasha Akery
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe

Beloved

Anna has plenty of experience extracting ghosts, but possession is not her expertise. Suri, her most recent client, sits across from her at a tiny table in the bookstore cafe. Anna glances over her notes, knowing this case is out of her league, but unwilling to turn back.

“Okay,” she begins after clearing her throat. “Every November since you were fourteen, this ghost chooses to possess a man in your life, and claims that he - not the man, but the ghost - has spent lifetimes with you, that you belong to him. Eventually he disappears, but what prompts him to leave you alone?”

“A restraining order.”

Anna laughs appreciatively before she realizes that Suri isn’t joking.

“The first time I encountered the ghost, he possessed my father. Dad would get blitzed every once in awhile, but there was one time when he was saying all of these strange things to me, that I wasn’t his daughter, that he’s known me for centuries, that he’ll always find me wherever I am. My parents eventually split up and it only got weirder after that. I told Mom and she said I didn’t have to see him anymore if I didn’t want to, so I moved in with her and she got a restraining order because he was getting aggressive. When we called the police, you could see it in his eyes. Whatever was making him say that stuff was gone. His eyes were clear. I still remember how confused he looked when they handcuffed him.”

Suri scoots her chair closer to the table and leans forward to continue.

“It’s been a different guy every time. Someone would come along - a teacher, a co-worker, a complete stranger - and it would be the same script, past lives and all that crap, but I felt like I was getting to know him a little more each time. Sometimes, I could see him after he left one of their bodies, and he’d smile and wave goodbye as the police escorted the host away.”

“Has he ever missed a year?” Anna asks.

“Not one,” Suri whispers.

They share a few moments of silence, encased in the sound of the espresso machine and surrounding conversation.

“I guess we’ve got to wait for him to show up. In the meantime,” Anna says as she closes her notebook, “I need to do research and talk to some folks. You’ve got my number. Call me the minute you think he’s manifested. I don’t care if it’s a squirrel on your windowsill. Just call.”

“Okay. I will.”

They both stand, shake hands, and Anna walks away with a knot in her stomach.

                                                                                         ***

“Yes, this is Anna. Who’s this?” she asks, holding the phone between her ear and shoulder, putting the groceries on the kitchen counter.

“Suri is mine. You got that?” the man barked from the other end of the line. “You won’t get rid of me so easy!”

Anna feels every hair on her body stand on end as she leans back against the pantry door.

As calm as she can muster, “Hey, man. No one’s trying to get rid of anybody. Where’s Suri? Is she okay?”

Anna can almost hear the sneer of his lips as he says, “1780 Rutherford Avenue. Come see for yourself.”

                                                                                           ***

It’s 4:15 pm when Anna pulls up in front of the abandoned house. A few of the windows are broken and an overturned grocery cart is in the doorway. She closes her eyes, asks her dead mother for courage, and gets out of the car. Fearing the worst, she walks up the driveway and pulls the cart out of the way so she can get inside the house, which is empty except for trash and drug paraphernalia. She is drawn to the light pouring from the room down the hall, the door left ajar.

“Suri,” Anna calls cautiously.

She pushes the door open with her hand and spots the graffiti on the wall, some haphazard squares made with black spray paint and a message next to the window.

“Go...at 4:33 you’ll see...”

Anna pulls out her phone to check the time: 4:30. She runs up to the window and looks out into the backyard. A man grins at her from beneath a tree and next to him Suri stands on a stool, gagged with her wrists tied behind her and a noose around her neck.

“Oh God, please,” Anna breathes.

The moment he lifts his foot to kick over the stool, there is a gunshot and he falls to the ground. Two police officers run toward Suri who screams through her snot-soaked gag, locking eyes with Anna through the window. Footsteps echo in the house behind her as backup searches the premises, following the tip Anna called in to the 911 dispatcher before speeding over to Rutherford, but the familiar chill of another presence brushes against the left side of her neck.

Suri’s voice is a distant cry, full of warning and remorse, “Anna! That’s him! Oh Anna, I’m so sorry!”

Anna takes in a breath as she turns to face the apparition. His appearance seems thick enough to touch, and he stands almost a foot taller than her, making him all the more menacing as he tilts his head to the side and smiles down at her.

“It’s dangerous to play games without knowing the rules, Anna.”

The sound of his voice both repels and lures every blood vessel in her body, desire and disgust making her heart pound in her throat. Anna realizes that Suri left out a very important detail about this ghost: he keeps haunting her because, deep down, she wants him to come back.

“What is your name?” Anna whispers, keeping her hands from balling up into fists as she waits for the one piece of information he is obligated to give her when demanded.

“Lucas.”

In a blink, he is gone as officers pour into the room with guns drawn.




Photograph by: Emily Blincoe
Written by: Natasha Akery