After Life by Rhian Ellis

wire, peering through the dark. Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled. It was less an exhalation, though, than a moan: long and low. It unnerved me.
    “Mama,” I said, taking her arm. “Let’s go back to the car.”
    “Shhh.” She batted me away.
    So I waited, hugging myself to keep warm. I still didn’t recognize the place at all. The barn would be somewhere off to the left, but it was hidden in the shadows, and all I could see of the lake was a string of lights on the opposite shore. It was possible to think that I had nothing to do with what was going on down the hill.
    My mother swayed a little and her dress rustled in the weeds. Then she gave another moan, even longer and lower than the first, and then she sighed deeply.
    “They’re right,” she whispered.
    “What?”
    “That he’s a man. A white man…” She frowned.
    “Not an Indian?”
    “Definitely not,” she said, shaking her head. Then she reached out and touched me on the arm. Involuntarily, I jumped. “Can you get through?”
    “God, no. It’s too cold to concentrate.”
    “Well. I can’t seem to get much more, either. Let’s go, then.”
    We turned and waded back through the weeds. I got into the driver’s side of the car and my mother dropped heavily into the passenger side. “Don’t take off just yet,” she said.
    I turned the engine on and switched the heat up to high.
    “You’re going to think I’m nuts,” my mother said, adjusting her dress beneath her thighs. “But I think I know who it is. Whose the bones are. I think they’re my brother’s.”
    Again, I felt myself jerk, as if shot through with electricity. “Uncle Geoffrey’s?” I asked, dumbfounded.
    “Oh, for God’s sake, Naomi! No, not Geoffrey’s! Don’t be stupid. He’s still alive. I mean Wilson! I think they’re Wilson’s bones.”
    Wilson was her eldest brother, the one who left home and disappeared when she was a child; she hadn’t seen him since the forties, in New Orleans. I’d only ever seen one picture of him—a skinny, smart-alecky boy sitting on the bumper of a very large car. My mother’s glasses glinted in the light of the dashboard. She didn’t speak for a few moments. Then she sighed.
    “Well, all right, I know. It’s pretty far-fetched. It’s just an idea I have.”
    I’d never heard her sound so unsure of herself. “Well, it could be him,” I said, dubiously.
    “It doesn’t matter. It’s somebody.” She sat up, turned in her seat, and looked at me. I could almost hear her confidence come roaring back. “And you know what? I’m going to save my career.”
    I revved the car. “I don’t understand.”
    “Naomi! Pay attention! If I can figure out what happened here, just think what it will do for my career! They’d think twice before canceling my radio show, that’s for certain. Someone was killed and buried and the spirit is out there looking for a medium, I can feel it. I’m sure of it.”
    I turned to look at her. My mouth fell open.
    “Maybe I could even write a book,” she mused.
    After a long minute I nodded. “Maybe,” I said, and put my foot on the gas.
    As I drove, she told me what she planned to do: she would continue to visit the site two or three times a week, then go home and meditate for an hour. Surely, she said, now that the spirit’s bones were disturbed, and people were curious about them, it would be receptive to contact. She would also do some traditional research, look up unsolved cases at the library, go to City Hall and look at old deeds to the land. The more information she could gather, the closer she’d get to the spirit’s vibration…
    No, I thought, reeling.
    “Gosh, just look at that house,” she said, interrupting herself and prodding the window with her thumb. I took a deep breath and looked. Every window of a big Greek-revival-style house was lit up, revealing glimpses of chandeliers and woodwork and different wallpaper in every room. There were some beautiful