Page 90 of Possibly Texas

Right?

Full of newfound bravery, I grinned and turned my head to Auggie.

“Hey,” I said to the back of his head, “what time is—”

“There!” Auggie gasped, his eyes suddenly wide as he jabbed a finger at the graveyard.

“What?”

I whipped my head back around to look at the misty graveyard across the road from us, my eyes darting around to find what Auggie had spotted.

At first, I saw nothing but the miasma created by warm air and cold air meeting over a body of water and then being blown lazily by a breeze. Nothing was in the graveyard; of that I was certain. Just a few trees, the headstones, and the mist. However, when I started to turn my head back to Auggie to ask him what he was going on about, my eyes finally landed on what had caught his attention.

A figure.

A white figure was walking up the road from the direction of Susurrus Creek.

Shaking my head in disbelief, wondering if a Possibilian was on a midnight stroll, I tried adjusting my eyes to the dark and the mist that lay between us and the figure. Seconds crept by slowly as I stared at the figure off in the distance that was partially cast in shadow. As it drew closer, gliding along the road towards the graveyard, I realized I was not looking at a person. Details started to become clear as I watched it move along the road lazily.

The figure wasn’t just someone who looked white in the light of the moon, but it was actually…just…white. Because the figure was covered in a sheet. My first instinct was to laugh, seeing someone walking up the road in a white sheet like an old-timey ghost, but a shiver ran up my back instead.

There were no eye holes cut in the sheet for a person to see through. The sheet hung so low that it fluttered along the road around the figure. To make matters worse, a rope was tied around the neck of the figure, securing the sheet in place. Not like a noose, no, but just a single knot cinched impossibly tight around its throat. Knotted at the figure’s throat and draped to hang over its shoulder, it dragged along the road behind the figure as it glided towards the graveyard.

“What the—” I gasped, then slapped a hand over my mouth.

Auggie didn’t react. He stared at the figure.

The mist seemed to part for the figure as it moved along the road, creating a path for the ghost to make its way to the graveyard. Shivers ran through my body, making me jerk and convulse as I kept my hand clenched over my mouth so as to not make noise. The figure didn’t seem to notice us—though, how could we tell since it had no eyes—but continued along the road drawing closer and closer to the graveyard, dipping in and out of the moon’s light and the shadows.

Just when I thought I would scream out in terror, movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I whipped my head around, terrified to take my eyes off of the…ghost…but needing to know what was moving in the distance.

Coming down the road, gliding just like the other ghost, came another figure in a white sheet with a knotted rope around its neck. It was walking towards the graveyard as though it had come from Jack’s place. My fingernails dug into my cheek as I clenched my hand more firmly over my mouth. I knew my eyes had to be like saucers as I watched the second figure gliding along the road, its sheet and rope dragging along behind it.

Following the second figure with my eyes, I watched as it drew closer to the graveyard. When it had traveled far enough, I was able to fix my gaze where I could see both figures traveling along the road towards each other. Auggie hadn’t moved, he was simply watching as the ghosts made their way to each other. Finally, the two figures stepped off of the road and into the graveyard, the mist continuing to create a path for them.

The ghosts walked through the graveyard as though, even without eyes, they were watching each other. Finally, the two met at the largest headstone at the westernmost point of the graveyard. Only the tree we were behind and the expanse of the road separated us from the ghosts, and I felt that I would come out of my skin. I’d hop up, run away in terror, cackling like a loon.

At the large headstone, the two ghosts stopped, a mere foot of space between them. Even without eyes, I could tell they were staring into each other’s souls as the mist reorganized around them, surrounding them in the miasma as they stood there staring at each other.

My hand was clenched so tightly over my mouth, my lips and cheeks were starting to ache. I began to shake as I stared at the ghosts with eyes that refused to blink from sheer terror.

We had summoned ghosts.

There were ghosts in the graveyard.

Auggie hadn’t been lying to me.

Possibly was…haunted.

No. That wasn’t possible. Even in Possibly.

There was no such thing as ghosts or summoning them or any of it. We couldn’t be watching two actual ghosts in sheets standing in a graveyard having a midnight mass of some sort.

Malia.

Malia came to Bend of the Road Graveyard and did her “performance art” from time to time. One of the figures in the sheets had to be Malia. She had gotten someone to help her put on another show—maybe at Auggie’s suggestion? That had to be it.

Though I was terrified, I felt my spine straighten as I leapt up from my spot behind the tree. I had barely stepped past Auggie as he knelt by the tree before he was leaping from the grass as well. I felt him grabbing at the back of my shirt, trying to stop me as I tried to duck out from under the shadow of the trees to expose myself to the ghosts. I wanted whoever was in the sheets to know that we were there and I didn’t believe any of this. I needed to prove that I wasn’t scared.