Free Web NovelChapter 53: A Most Unholy Discovery
James kept his arms where they were. One hand stayed tangled in her hair, the other rested against the middle of her back, and he let her shake.
He’d never believed much in ghosts. That was a difficult position to defend, admittedly, for a man who had drowned once, woken wearing the face of a dead pirate, and spent every day listening to a voice only he could hear narrate his life like a disappointed schoolmaster.
A world that allowed all of that could certainly make room for a wailing spirit. James simply hadn’t expected to discover he’d been wrong about ghosts himself.
The cry came again. This time he forced himself to listen instead of merely reacting. It climbed higher and higher until it cracked with strain, dropped into a low moan, lingered there for a heartbeat, then started the climb all over again. Grief normally wasn’t that consistent.
Lucía pulled back just enough to look up at him. Even in the darkness her eyes shone with tears as she grabbed his sleeve and tugged toward the little gate they’d entered through.
"Vámonos." Her voice trembled. "Por favor, vámonos de aquí. No quiero quedarme."
James stayed where he was.
"No."
He caught her hand before she could drag him farther, searching for Spanish that refused to come easily. "Yo... necesito ver qué es. Tú... quedas conmigo, sí?"
Whether he’d asked her or told her, he honestly couldn’t have said.
Lucía stared at him as though he’d misplaced every bit of sense the Lord had ever given him. Considering the circumstances, James couldn’t blame her. Even so, she didn’t bolt.
She pressed herself against his side instead, both hands clutching the front of his coat so tightly her knuckles whitened. She never loosened her grip, even after he started walking toward the noise. She stayed tucked beneath his arm, shortening every step to match his pace.
They slipped back through the little gate as quietly as they’d entered. No one seemed to remember it existed.
Beyond it, the ground sloped toward the shoreline through scrub brush and sea grapes. The pines gave way to pale sand, and beyond that, beside a stand of dead mangroves, crouched an old boathouse. Its weathered boards had faded silver with age, warped and split from years without repairs.
The cries led them straight there.
James kept one arm around Lucía.
"Easy now," he murmured. "It’s all right. I’m here. We’ll have a look and be gone."
She couldn’t have understood a single word. He wasn’t speaking for her sake. He simply wanted the comfort of hearing another human voice, even if it was his own.
Somehow, the sound seemed to calm her a little. She leaned closer.
As they neared the boathouse, James slowed and pointed.
"Allí." His voice dropped to almost nothing. "Vamos a mirar. Solo mirar."
"¿Mirar?" she whispered, clearly unconvinced.
"Aye. Mirar."
At least that bit of Spanish felt safe enough to trust.
They crept the last stretch one careful step at a time. James found the softer patches of sand by instinct, placing each boot where it would make the least noise.
At the wall, they found a board that had rotted away completely, leaving a narrow gap into the darkness inside. Moonlight slipped through the gap alongside the weak glow of a shuttered lantern.
James finally saw what had been making the noise.
The boathouse hadn’t sheltered a boat in years. Moldy coils of rope lay abandoned on the floor, and broken planks leaned against the far wall.
Tonight, however, it held something else.
A heap of gray wool robes pooled around two very pale, very bare ankles. A woman bent over an old workbench with her skirts shoved to her waist, every hairpin defeated as dark curls spilled down her back.
Behind her, a gray-robed old man enthusiastically thrusted with astonishing dedication. Sweat poured down his flushed face and he looked as though every thrust might be his last before his heart surrendered the struggle entirely, yet somehow he found the strength for another, and then another.
The woman appeared no less overwhelmed. Her head lolled back, eyes rolling heavenward, mouth hanging open as breathless cries tumbled out between gasps. She clung to the workbench with both hands while the poor piece of furniture protested its fate in long, splintering groans.
The whole boathouse seemed caught up in the effort. The lantern swung wildly from its nail, throwing drunken shadows over the walls. Dust sifted from the rafters with every violent jolt. Around the man’s neck, a crucifix bounced against the woman’s back in brisk, unwavering rhythm, tapping away like the smallest and holiest drummer James had ever seen.
"¡Ay, Dios, Dios, Dios!" the woman gasped loudly enough for the words to carry outside.
James rather doubted the Almighty accepted that as praise, wherever He happened to be listening tonight.
"Domine, miserere mei," the man panted. "Sancta Maria..."
Breathless fragments slipped between grunts that belonged in a chapel and nowhere near an abandoned boathouse. He’d seen that same man on his first afternoon in this miserable town, walking toward the mission with folded hands and eyes carefully fixed anywhere trouble wasn’t.
That explained quite a lot.
Twice now. Twice he’d gone searching for one sort of trouble only to stumble across a degenerate man enjoying himself instead. James was beginning to suspect the universe enjoyed a joke. Unfortunately, it also seemed to have only one, and it insisted on telling it to him.
Beside him, Lucía went completely stiff. One hand flew over her eyes, though her fingers stayed spread just far enough apart that James doubted she missed anything.
"Fray Bartolomé," she whispered in horror. "Fray Bartolomé... y doña Mariana. La esposa del sargento Reyes."
James caught fray, esposa, and sargento. That was enough.
A friar. Another man’s wife.
Somewhere in Pensacola, a sergeant was about to become the center of a very different kind of gossip from the ghost stories people had been repeating for years.
Before James could think of anything to say, something else interrupted.
⚓ [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Quest Complete : A Ghost, Allegedly
Reward : 0.1 Fate
There is no ghost. There has never been a ghost. There is merely a friar with suspiciously robust stamina, a sergeant’s wife with the libido of a mythological nymph, and enough ecstatic shrieking to convince the citizens of Pensacola the dead were screaming. The dead, for the record, remain noticeably quieter than those two.
James eased Lucía away from the unholy act and guided her several steps into the darkness before trusting himself not to laugh loudly enough to reveal them.
Whatever people might say about the friar and the sergeant’s wife, James had to admire one thing. They’d chosen a hiding place no sensible soul would ever think to search, then thrown themselves into the risk with more courage than his crew had shown boarding enemy ships.
The boathouse was falling apart, the workbench complained louder than either of them, and neither seemed remotely concerned.
It was spectacularly foolish.
James couldn’t help respecting that.
Lucía had somehow traveled all the way from terrified to deeply embarrassed without stopping at calm along the way.
Even now she kept peeking through her fingers, glancing back at the boathouse while walking backward a half step at a time, as though unable to believe the building held nothing more supernatural than a noisy bench and two complete perverts too distracted to notice they had an audience.
James smiled into the darkness and let her look.
A girl raised this sheltered was bound to learn about the world eventually. If Pensacola’s finest insisted on providing the lesson free of charge, that certainly wasn’t his responsibility.
Whatever else happened, this story had already earned a permanent place among the tales he’d be telling for years.
