Chapter 10
Remy arrived at work the next morning to find Jesse already inside, getting things ready for the day.
“Hi,” Jesse said gently when Remy walked into the touring company gift shop. “I still had your keys. Hope you don’t mind that I let myself in.”
“No, it’s fine.”
Jesse walked out from behind the counter and handed her the work keys. He looked at her with concern. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay, I guess.”
Remy was grateful that none of the bus drivers or other employees had arrived yet, so they could talk freely. She looked at Jesse’s outfit, as he was dressed in his usual Confederate soldier uniform.
Remy looked into his eyes and asked softly, “Did you really die at Devil’s Den?”
“Yeah,” Jesse replied. “Here, come sit with me a minute.”
He led her over to the row of chairs by the wall where guests usually sat while waiting for the tour buses to arrive. Remy sat down, and Jesse took a seat next to her.
“So,” Remy began, her mind still whirring from yesterday’s events. So much had changed. She looked at him sorrowfully. “You were really shot in the shoulder and the head? Just like the story you tell on tour?”
“Well, yes.” Jesse ran his fingers through his hair. “Except, well you know how you kinda tell cleaned-up versions of some of the more gruesome stories on certain ghost tours?”
“Oh, no,” Remy said. “You mean your death was even worse than what you describe?”
“Yeah,” Jesse said, looking at her tenderly. Remy could see that he wanted to be truthful with her, but he was also trying not to upset her. “Lucy told you all about Joel, right? How we was enemies?”
Remy nodded, remembering how affectionately Lucy had spoken about her friend.
“Well, we was enemies for so long because he killed me.”
Remy nodded slowly, feeling confused. This Joel guy had killed the love of Lucy’s life, and she was his friend?
“It was the heat of battle, ya know? Anyway, somebody else shot me in the shoulder. I didn’t see who,” Jesse continued. “It don’t matter, I guess. But then there was this guy standin’ right in front of me. I had half a second to decide what to do.”
Jesse paused for a moment. Remy’s heart caught in her throat, as she could see how difficult this was for him to talk about. It wasn’t easy to hear, either. Jesse was one of her dearest friends, and she hated to think of him suffering.
“I shot him,” Jesse said. He suddenly looked worried, like he was afraid Remy would judge him for shooting an enemy soldier in the middle of a war zone. “Turned out he’d dropped his musket. He might have been surrenderin’, I don’t know. If I’d have known he was unarmed, I never would have—”
“Of course you wouldn’t, Jesse,” Remy said reassuringly. “You’d never hurt anyone unless you felt you had no choice.”
Remy saw relief in Jesse’s eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, I really wouldn’t! Anyway, I killed the man.
Charles. His name was Charles. And it turns out he was Joel’s best friend.
They grew up together. And Joel had to see it happen ‘fore his eyes. And he couldn’t do nothin’ to save him.
” Jesse paused for a moment, lost in that sorrowful memory from so long ago. “So Joel shot me in the head.”
Remy grimaced and closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry, darlin’. I don’t have to tell you all this if it’ll upset you.”
Remy opened her eyes. “It’s okay. I want to know the truth. All of it.”
Jesse looked uncertain, and Remy couldn’t imagine what was coming next. What could be worse than being shot in the head?
“Well, Joel was angry and grievin’ and well, I think he thought I was already dead. I’d been shot and was bleedin’ and all, and well he’d been holding his regiment’s flag, and in a rage he rammed the flagpole right through my stomach. He thought I was dead, but—”
Remy gasped in horror and covered her mouth.
“Yeah,” Jesse said quietly. “Ain’t no reason to upset the tourists with that kind of detail.”
Remy slowly lowered her hands and stared at Jesse. She looked into his kind eyes and wanted to break into a sob.
“Jesse,” Remy said, her voice shaking.
Jesse reached over and grasped her hand in both of his.
“It’s all right, darlin’,” Jesse said in a calm, reassuring voice. “As you can see, I’ve recovered quite nicely!”
Remy burst into laughter instead of tears. It was all so absurd.
Jesse laughed heartily, too.
“I feel so bad for all the times I joked about your death!” Remy exclaimed.
Jesse let go of her hand and waved his hand dismissively. “Think nothin’ of that. If it’s one thing we ghosts—or former ghosts—got goin’, it’s a good sense of humor ‘bout our dyin’.”
“Thank you for telling me, Jesse.”
He nodded, then his expression darkened. “Oh, and there’s somethin’ I else I need to tell you. It’s real important.”
Remy nodded, a little worried at his suddenly serious tone.
“It’s about Lucy. She’s real sensitive to anything paranormal. Always has been. You know how some people on your ghost tours see and hear stuff, but others don’t?”
Remy nodded slowly. “I always thought it was just their imagination.”
“Well, probably is sometimes. But some people are just real attuned to ghost stuff. Don’t know why. Sometimes it’s kinda neat. When Avery comes to visit Lucy in the restaurant, she can feel that he’s there. Even if he’s invisible.”
“Wow!”
Jesse nodded. “But it can be real dangerous for her. Sometimes…sometimes when somebody’s super sensitive, they can feel other things. Bad things.”
Remy was alarmed by Jesse’s fearful expression.
“Like what?”
“Well, if somebody with Lucy’s, you know, ability to sense stuff has some kinda connection to a soldier, like say they had some ancestor die in the war or in her case she’s actually friends with lots of soldiers…
well, if she goes on the battlefield around the time the guy died, she’ll feel what happened to them.
She'll physically feel the battle wounds that killed ‘im.”
He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Anxiety prickled in Remy’s stomach. Jesse seemed utterly distraught.
He opened his eyes and whispered, “It happened to Lucy. She felt my death.”
“Oh, my God,” Remy said.
“I was stupid. God, I was so stupid. It’s just…
it’s so rare that it happens. I only seen it maybe five or six times in the last hundred years, and I just didn’t think.
But Lucy took us, me and Joel, to Devil’s Den to try and work out our differences.
It was around five p.m. when I died. Remy, she felt everything.
” The anguish in Jesse’s eyes was almost more than she could bear.
Remy’s heart ached for both Lucy and Jesse. She couldn’t fathom the horror of it all.
“She just kept screamin’ in pain, beggin’ me to make it stop. But I was dead! I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t stop it. I-I couldn’t stop it—”
Remy put her hand on Jesse’s back and rubbed gently. “It’s all right, Jesse. She’s all right now. Isn’t she?”
Jesse nodded. “Yeah. It don’t leave no lasting damage. The other tourists…when it happened, they had no idea what was happening. Poor folks probably thought they was dyin. When it’s over, it’s over. But it’s so awful.”
“Oh, Jesse I can’t imagine.”
“I’m jus’ telling you all this so you’ll know to help keep Lucy safe.
She likes to help Theresa counsel the soldiers, and sometimes they go to where the guys died, but I can’t let her do that.
It’s too dangerous!” Jesse looked at Remy pleadingly.
“Avery died at Little Round Top, so Lucy can’t ever go there again. Or she’ll feel what happened to him.”
Remy felt a sharp stab of pain in her chest at the thought of Avery dying.
“Avery…did he…did he suffer?” Remy said, feeling the threat of tears behind her eyes.
“Not for long, I don’t believe,” Jesse said gently. “Sweetie, he was shot near the heart and, no, darlin’. It didn’t take long.”
“Thank God for that,” Remy said.
Jesse looked at her with concern. “Do you want to go see him today?”
Remy felt utterly overwhelmed at the prospect of talking to Avery. A ghost. It was all too much.
“I-I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ready.”
“Okay,” Jesse said, looking disappointed. “I don’t want to pressure you. I just know how worried he is about you and how much he wants to see you.”
Remy nodded. Her chest hurt when she pictured Avery sitting alone up on Little Round Top. Where he had died.
Jesse must have realized she was feeling overwhelmed, so he added, “It’s okay, Remy. I know all this will take some time to get used to. And really, ghosts are nothing to be afraid of. You…you’re not afraid of me now, are you?”
Remy looked at Jesse, who was one of the nicest guys she had ever met in her life. She couldn’t imagine ever being afraid of him.
“Of course not!”
“Good, good,” Jesse said with a laugh. “There are, you know, lots of dead people around here. And I’m friends with lots of ‘em.”
“That’s so hard to imagine!” Remy said, shaking her head.
“Not as hard as you might think, my dear,” Jesse said with a knowing twinkle in his eye. “You were friends with Avery without knowing.
“True.”
“And I bet you know some other dead folks.”
Remy looked at him dubiously.
“You ever see an older black lady hangin’ out in town? Not far from where Lucy works? Near the Regimental Quartermaster?”
“Not sure,” Remy said, thinking hard. She might have seen the woman around.
“That’s Fillis. She looks like a slave reenactor, but she ain’t. She was a real slave.”
“Wow,” Remy said sadly. She couldn’t fathom what it must have been like to be owned by other people like some kind of animal. That poor woman.
“We all love her. Name’s Fillis—with an F—but we call her Second Mama ‘cause she’s like a mother to us.” Jesse thought for a moment, then suddenly snapped his fingers.
“What?”
“Okay, you know you told me ‘bout that little boy who hangs out near where you do your nighttime tours? You’re always worried about him ‘cause nobody’s really supervisin’ him?”
“Yeah,” Remy said, picturing the cute little boy with neglectful parents who didn’t keep a good eye on him.