Ghosts of Averoigne

“Just go,” said Xiomara. She unwrapped another wafer of chocolate and slid it into her mouth. “I’m tired of you both already.”

Logan stood up from his chair to leave. Kara however, remained seated.

“Listen…”

She decided to take one more shot. This time with sugar and honey, instead of a shotgun.

“You know I work best alone,” she implored Xiomara. “I always have, all throughout my tenure here. And my reputation speaks for itself.”

The old woman stared back at her impassively. Maybe she was savoring the chocolate. Tasting it. Allowing the tiny wafer to melt on her tongue.

“Give me this assignment,” demanded Kara. She jerked her head toward Logan. “And send him elsewhere.” She lowered her voice without knowing why. “Surely you don’t need the both of—”

Xiomara’s eyes flared. Her mouth twisted into the same expression Kara imagined she’d have if she’d just bit down on a lemon.

“GO!”

Three

Kara was nine when it first happened. Or at least, the first time she remembered it happening.

She’d been at her grandmother’s. Sitting in the old house, the one her great-grandfather had built, down by the lake. One minute Kara was eating ice cream at the kitchen table, just daydreaming. Staring past the yellow-orange curtains that framed the window, into the bright blue sky.

The next minute, she was gone.

Or rather, her surroundings were gone. Kara was still there. Still seated at the table, still eating ice cream. Only she was now somehow outside. No curtains, no window… just the lake.

When she looked down, it was like being in a dream. Her bowl, her spoon… everything was fuzzy and disjointed. Nothing had clear edges. Like it was there, but also not there — somehow at the same time.

At first she’d been scared, almost to the point of panic. But then a strange sense of calm stole over her, and Kara found she could feel the warmth of the sun. She could hear the sounds of the insects, the birds, the wind. The sounds of summer.

That’s when she saw him: the man in the faded red hat.

He was a big man, gentle-looking and soft, with a broad, gap-toothed smile. A warm smile. The kind of smile only truly good people had. The kind of happiness that was impossible to fake.

The man looked at her. Looked past her. That part Kara was always unsure of — whether or not he actually did see her. There were times she knew in her heart that he couldn’t have. But also times when she swore that he did.

He walked past her, and for a split second his features came into sharp focus. Angular nose. Brown pants and suspenders. His expression still plastered with the same deliriously happy grin.

There was a rush of sound, and noise, and suddenly Kara was back again. Sitting in her grandmother’s kitchen. Eating vanilla ice cream out of a plastic Tupperware bowl.

All she remembered after that was the screaming. It had taken forever just to calm her down.

It was several months before she saw him again, this time in an old, black and white photograph hung in her grandmother’s room. The man stood wearing the same suspenders, wielding the same gap-toothed grin. Kara didn’t have the slightest doubt as to who he was. Though he was missing the hat, it was unmistakably him.

The man, she’d eventually learn, was her great-uncle Amos — one of three brothers who’d helped her great-grandfather build the lake house. When she described what she’d seen, no one believed her. Everyone had brushed it off with placating smiles.

“You probably saw the photograph before,” her mother had said. “And forgot you saw it. Or maybe you’re just remembering it strangely.”

Kara almost bought into that idea. That is, until she mentioned the red hat. Whenever she talked about that part of her vision, her grandmother’s face always went grave. She refused to talk about it… but she knew that hat. And moreover, she knew that Kara knew too.

For the rest of her life — all two and a half years of it — her grandmother had looked at her the same way one looks at an unpredictable dog… one that could bite at any time. There was still love, still affection, but also a distance. An unspoken wariness that drove an unfortunate wedge between them.

It was the only aspect of her clairvoyance Kara would ever truly regret.

From there it happened again, although infrequently, over the years. Kara would see people, places, even events… all where there was nothing to see. “It’s like a bunch of stuff that’s already happened,” she’d said, describing it to friend once. “Echoes of the past. Brief flashes of things that used to be.”

All of her friends laughed it off. Not one of them believed her. They didn’t see things the way her grandmother did, and that was just fine with Kara.