Forest Ghost by Graham Masterton Page A

dwa kilometry na północ … a potem jeszcze trzysta metrów na zachód … od wsi Truskaw
.’
    What?
He could hardly hear her, let alone understand what she was saying to him. She was trying to tell him that somebody was two kilometers to the north of Truskaw then three hundred meters to the west.
    He recognized the name Truskaw immediately. Truskaw was the village in the Kampinos Forest to which Grzegorz Walach and Maria’s great-uncle Andrzej had been trying to escape during the war, but where they had finally been overwhelmed with terror.
    ‘
S ą pogrzebani tam, gdzie ś cie ż ka rozdziela si ę na trzy
,’
Aggie continued. She sounded as if she were reading from a script, or a diary, like Maria. ‘
Pod skałami w kształcie głowy wied ź my
.’
    Jack understood that. ‘They are buried where the path divides into three … under the rocks that look like a witch’s head.’
    Who is
? he asked her, but this time the silence went on and on and she didn’t say anything more.
    ‘Aggie!’ he managed to choke out, and everybody seated around him turned and stared. Even Tamara Thorne opened her eyes and looked at him.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He stood up awkwardly and knocked over his folding chair.
    ‘You
heard
somebody, Jack?’ asked Tamara Thorne.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry I disturbed you. I – ah – I have to get back to my customers.’
    He picked up his chair and then he made his way back between the bookshelves. Bindy came hurrying after him and caught up with him just as he reached the door.
    ‘Jack! Are you all right, Jack? Oh, God – you look so
pale
.’
    ‘I’m fine, Bindy. I knew I shouldn’t have come. The last few days … well, that Owasippe business probably disturbed me more than I realized.’
    ‘No, it’s me who should be sorry,’ said Bindy. ‘I should have seen that this wasn’t a good time for you.’
    ‘Never mind,’ Jack told her. ‘Give my apologies to Tamara. Tell her I may even get around to reading her book.’
    As he stepped out of the door, Bindy said, ‘Jack?’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Nothing. I just wanted to make sure that you were OK. I do care about you, you know.’
    He kissed her on the forehead. She was slightly sweaty and her skin tasted of maca root moisturizer. ‘Thanks, Bindy. Take care of yourself.’

Where the Bones Are
    W hen he returned to the restaurant, he found that Sparky was in the kitchen, wearing a white apron that almost reached the floor and a white chef’s cap. He was using his hands to mix ground pork and ground beef with onions and crushed Saltine crackers in a large brown bowl.
    ‘I teach him to make
schnitzla
,’ said Mikhail, proudly. ‘More useful than wait on table.’
    ‘That’s great, Mikhail,’ Jack told him. But when Mikhail had gone back to his range to fry up some more onions, Jack said to Sparky, with an intensity that was almost ferocious, ‘
How did you know?
’
    ‘How did I know what, Dad?’
    ‘How did you know that medium woman had a message for me?’
    ‘I told you, Dad. It was all in your star chart. “Somebody has a message for you, and it’s a woman.”’
    ‘Yes, you were right. A woman
did
have a message for me. I heard her speaking to me, right inside my head. But do you have any idea who it was?’
    Sparky looked up at him, his hands still deep in the bowl of ground pork.
    ‘No,’ he said, in a little ghost of a voice.
    ‘It was your mom. At least I think it was. You know that I don’t believe in any of that life-after-death baloney. But it sounded exactly like her.’
    Two tears suddenly rolled down Sparky’s cheeks. ‘It was
Mom
? You really heard her?’
    Jack came around the table and put his arms around Sparky’s shoulders. ‘I don’t know how it was done, Sparks. Maybe I was tricked. Some of these mediums, they have ways to fool you into thinking that they’re putting you in touch with dead people, but it’s nothing but a scam.