Magic in the Blood by Devon Monk Page B

if it had been his ghost I had seen, his ghost should be here, graveside.
    The sound of traffic bled away, the startled call of a crow smothered out beneath the rush of blood in my ears. My breath, my heartbeat were suddenly too loud.
    My father was gone.
    Really gone.
    We hadn’t been close—he too distant in his pursuit of wealth and power, me too young and grieving the loss of my mother and absence of him. And with age, I traded grief for anger. Now that could never be different, could never change between us.
    And I didn’t even know if I’d lost the small bits of him most people got to keep—memories, maybe memories of us together, maybe memories of the good moments. I searched my thoughts, tried to dredge up images of him smiling, of times we’d spent not angry at each other. But all that came to me was his stern disapproval. If we’d ever been happy or gentle with each other, it was lost to me. And now that he was gone, I’d never have a chance to get those times back or to make new ones.
    How could I say good-bye when he never gave me the chance to say hello?
    I sniffed even though I couldn’t feel my nose, and blinked hard until I could see the grave clearly again. Finally I stepped up next to his grave and knelt.
    “Good-bye, Dad.” I pressed my palms against his grave, pushing through the scrubby grass to the wet soil.
    Magic shifted in me, maybe responding to the connection between my hands and the ground, and I realized I could use it, use a small bit of magic to reach out to my dad one last time and feel the physical presence of his life in this world. I could connect with him before finally and totally letting go of him.
    I whispered a mantra and spoke the words of a Disbursement. I’d have a bigger headache later today or tomorrow, but that was okay with me. I traced a glyph for Sight and for Touch. I put only the smallest hint of need behind my action. I still didn’t have the best control over all this magic, and I did not want to suddenly find myself feeling as though I were actually in the coffin with him.
    A light touch was all I was looking for.
    Magic responded with an almost sexual tingle, lifting into my senses, heightening my sight and sense of touch. Faded colors, like Christmas lights through fog, moved at the corners of my vision. I looked around me, looked at the graves. A watercolor haze lay over them like an aura. I expected watercolor people to pop up out of that haze, out of the graves, but nothing. And more important, no one moved.
    Weird. I mean, if there was ever a place I expected to find a ghost, it would be here, in a cemetery. The hazy, faded colors shifted a little, as if an unseen wind stirred them. But that was all.
    Good.
    I directed the magic into my hands, into my tactile sense. I felt rather than saw magic wrap around my hands like liquid ribbons of warmth. I sent those ribbons down into the earth where my father’s body lay at rest.
    Maybe it was a creepy idea. Death makes people do creepy things. But I needed to acknowledge his life one last time. Maybe more than that, I needed to acknowledge the cold, hard reality of his death.
    Then hopefully there would be no more of this ghost stuff for me.
    I braced for the awareness of his flesh and bone, well on their way to decay and collapse. I braced for the sensation of a once-living man now reduced to an inert lump of tissue. I braced for the feeling of a body completely absent of life, of soul.
    What I did not brace for was to feel nothing.
    Nothing.
    I frowned. I could sense the weight of dirt and stone around the casket. I could sense the casket, made of wood, still strong and whole.
    And I could sense the emptiness within it.
    There was no body in that casket. No decay. Not even a single bug. Nothing but stale air.
    Was this the wrong grave? I glanced at the headstone, read my father’s name, his date of birth, date of death. This was the right grave. His grave.
    It couldn’t be empty.
    Wishful thinking?