Dreaming August Read online

  Hey, Dan. Remember the night we had sex in the carriage, in the cold, under the stars? You do know how babies are made, right? Well, we made one. Henny’s wife and his best friend, bumping uglies in public. So much for loyalty, eh?

  Even as a joke, the thought made her nauseous, so nauseous she couldn’t finish her sandwich. The same had been happening since the lines first appeared on the pee-stick. Soon, she kept telling herself. She would tell him soon. But soon never came, because the nausea always hit, because the guilt of producing life when Henny was dead simply turned her brain to mush.

  “Good Lord, sugar, if you don’t look like you’re about to go down.” Savannah’s arm went around her waist, supporting her when she didn’t even realize her knees were starting to buckle. She helped Benny to an overturned crate, sat her down, pressed a cool hand to her forehead. Benny closed her eyes. She willed the nausea and the thoughts to subside. A moment, two, and she started to feel better.

  “I won’t ask what’s going on,” Savannah said. “You won’t tell me if I do, but please see a doctor about whatever this is ailing you.”

  “I know what’s wrong with me,” Benny started, but pulled herself up short. “Too many late nights drinking and partying with my friends.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Would you believe I’m an avid gamer who stays up playing online with people I’ve never met in the flesh?”

  “I would, but no, that’s not it either.” Savannah cocked her head. She pursed her lips. She looked about to say something, but turned away instead. The hand moving to and dropping quickly from her brow was as slight as the way the corners of her eyes suddenly pinched, but Benny noticed.

  “Valerie got here a few minutes ago,” Savannah said. “She can finish this. You rest a bit, Benny, and then go home. Dr. Callowell’s orders, y’hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Benny tried to tease, but Savannah had already turned away. Her steps were hurried, as if she were fleeing something but didn’t want that something to know. It wasn’t the first time Benny noticed this, or the ephemeral sensation of spider-webs on skin that accompanied it. Still, she let it slide. At the moment, she had her own sensations to deal with.

  Benny forced the remainder of her lunch down, rested a few moments in the cool office and went home. Only she didn’t go home.

  Riding the still-wet roads to the cemetery, Benny breathed in the cool, washed-clean air. It settled the queasiness she was convinced came as much from anxiety as it did her pregnancy. She anticipated the muddy earth awaiting the morning glory seeds in her pocket, the flowers needing dead-heading, and filling the bare spot on Mrs. Farcus’ plot with the marigolds riding in the milk crate bungee-corded to the back of her scooter.

  Turning her scooter into Bitterly Cemetery, the familiar peace descended. As a devoted teenaged-goth-chick, Benny had done the black eye-liner and lipstick, wore ironic t-shirts and hung out at the cemetery with all the other goth kids. Whatever trendy, put-on reason her friends might have had, the cemetery wasn’t a place of dead bodies and séances to brave on Halloween Night for Benny. It was a place of peace, of rest.

  She used to stroll among the stones, looking at the dates and wondering about the lives lived between them. She made up stories, and sometimes found histories in the library. Harriet Gardner Farcus had been one of those histories. The daughter of one of the founding families, she’d married the son of another. She was born, lived and died in Bitterly, never having stepped foot outside its confines. It hadn’t been difficult to find stories about her. Midwife and herbalist, Harriet Farcus had also been known to foster any orphaned animal left upon her doorstep. Benny liked to think of her as a benevolent witch in a land that no longer believed in such things. When Henny died and Benny realized a plot near her was vacant, she had wept tears of joy.

  Leaving her scooter in its usual spot under the shade tree, Benny went first to Henny’s grave. The garden was a bit soggy, but nothing squashed. She dead-headed spent flowers and planted the morning glories, blew her husband a kiss and turned to Harriet’s grave.

  “What the—?” She spun, and spun again. That tap. Another one. Benny gritted her teeth. Squinting, she scanned the area for someone who might be tossing sticks or little stones. There was no one, and neither were there any bits of stick or stone on the meticulously cared-for grass.

  Benny inhaled deeply, glanced at her husband’s grave, and took her marigolds to Mrs. Farcus.

  “I don’t know what the heck is going on here, Mrs. Farcus,” she murmured as she dug the hole. “I’m not imagining it. Yesterday, I could convince myself. But again today? Am I hallu—”

  Again the tap, this time, harder. Benny spun to her right to find no one there, only empty air that felt strangely emptier than the air to her left. No stone in the grass. No bird or bee or anything but the silent cemetery and late afternoon sunshine. She glanced at Harriet’s marker.

  “Is it…is it you? Are you…?” Benny shook her head, chuckled softly. “Don’t be stupid, Benedetta. You’re addled these days, is all.”

  Her hand moved to her belly. Aside from the tech at the childbirth clinic, no one knew. Necessary as it was, it felt like betrayal, like she was unhappy, like she didn’t want the baby she kept secret. Her hand still on her belly, she touched Harriet’s marker.

  “I’m pregnant.” The words rushed out in a breath exhaled. “I’m going to have a little baby in November. I think it’s doing strange things to me. I keep feeling—” A sound like wind, and again the tap. Concentrated. Harder. Benny startled, but she didn’t turn. “Who…who are you?”

  This time, not a tap, but a gentle squeeze that lingered like comfort. Benny closed her eyes. “If it’s you, Harriet, give me a squeeze.”

  Nothing. Tears welled. Could it be…?

  “Henny? Is it you? Oh, please. Please let it be you.”

  No squeeze, just the lingering sensation of a hand on her shoulder. Benny squeezed her eyes tight. The tears welling fell free. Not Harriet. Not Henny. Definitely someone, or something, trying to get her attention. Or she was completely losing it, once and for all. Opening her eyes again, she didn’t turn to look, but peeked out of the corner of her eye. Nothing stirred the air beside her. Still the silent cemetery, still sunshine, but the touch did not fade.

  “Please. Who are you?”

  The spectral hand lifted, but did not fall away. She felt fingers in her hair, a breath upon her neck, and single word whispered into her ear.

  August.

  Chapter 3

  See Not As the Eyes of Man

  “Here she comes, Harriet. Here she comes.”

  “Calm yourself. I see her.”

  “What do I say?”

  “What are you asking me for? She’s been talking to me since she was a child and I never felt the need to answer. This is your idea, August, not mine. You’re the one who wants out of here so bad. Figure it out.”

  “You’re just angry because I’m leaving you.”

  “Angry for the first peace and quiet in donkey’s years? Not likely.”

  “You’ll be lonely, when I’m gone.”

  “You think you’re such good company? Go on. Off with you, before I box your ears.”

  “If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have ears.”

  “I’ll box them anyway. Don’t test me ’less you want to find out.”

  * * * *

  Benny stayed away from the cemetery for a few days. It wasn’t hard. Between tending the newly planted fields and selling flowers to the locals sprucing-up their gardens, June was a very busy time at the farm. The blog brought even more customers to Savvy’s. New Yorkers ‘in the country’ for the summer came in their never-seen-a-dirt-road SUVs and filled them with flats of annuals. Benny liked watching the kids’ faces when they saw the baby animals. They never made the connection between those in the pen and the grain-fed, cruelty-free meat Savannah sold discreetly out of a walk-in around back. She stocked not only bee
f and pork and chicken, but venison, goose, turkey and, occasionally, bear supplied by local hunters. The goat cheese and soaps sold in-store were made by an old high school friend of Benny’s, Darla, and her wife, Sandra. They traded their services for all the wool they could shear, card, spin, dye, and knit into the textiles they sold out of their shop in town. Benny already had her eye on one of their baby blankets.

  Three days of guilty avoidance passed before she caved and headed for the cemetery. How would she stay away for months?

  Riding through the dusk, she flew between the gates minutes before the cemetery officially closed, even though there was really no such thing for Bitterly Cemetery. In the earliest days of her widowhood, when summer still made nights cool instead of cold, Benny pitched the tent she and Henny bought for the big camping trip they never took, and slept at his graveside, waiting. If she believed hard enough, he’d find a way to her. And Benny believed. She felt whole worlds just beyond her fingertips when she stretched her arms out wide. It was there. She simply could not reach it. Yet.

  August.

  The word bounced about Benny’s head, clear as it did three days ago. August was the month Henny died. Was it connected in any way? Or did it mean whatever it was trying to reach her would do so in August? Tossing and turning through the night, Benny tried to make herself believe it was, after all, Henny trying to contact her, and that on the anniversary of his death, something would happen. But there had been no squeeze when she asked. In her heart, she knew it wasn’t him. She never felt Henny in the cemetery, despite her almost-daily visits, only an empty space he used to fill up.

  Flopped on the ground beside his tombstone, arms behind her head, gazing at the clouds, Benny let go a long sigh. “Sorry I haven’t been here. I got totally freaked out the other day.” She rolled onto her side. Flowers needed dead-heading. She plucked at a few. “That’s not quite right. I didn’t get freaked out. I got hopeful. But it’s not you trying to get my attention. You have it already, don’t you, Henny. All of it. Almost. This is just so weird. All the years I did séances with my friends and dabbled in Wicca even though it made Ma’s head explode, I wished so hard to see something otherworldly, and now this…whatever it is. Part of me says it’s bullshit. Part of me says finally! But I want it to be you, Henny. I just want it to be you.”

  Habit rolled Benny onto her belly and she instantly felt the pressure across her swelling abdomen. Burying her face into her folded arms, she inhaled the earthy scent. In. Out. The grass, newly cut. The dirt still damp from its daily watering. Intoxicating in its way. And the pressure across her abdomen a real and unavoidable reminder of the child she carried. Not Henny’s. Dan’s. A man she had known all her life, yet barely knew at all.

  “I was lonely,” she told the grass and earth. “And he is…he’s Dan. He did that stupid, does-this-smell-funny thing one day at CC’s and I fell for it. He wiped the cream from my nose so tenderly, you know? And when he said I needed to get out of the house, and who better than a harmless old bachelor friend, I said yes before I even thought about it.” Another deep breath in, out. “I didn’t realize how much I missed laughing. We had fun. When he asked if I wanted to go to the movies, I said yes. Another dinner? Yes. He showed up at the house with that horse and carriage of his on Valentine’s Day and took me for a ride. That was the night, Henny. It was the only time we—well, you know how babies are made.”

  She sniffed back tears.

  “He told me he was falling in love with me. Why did he have to say those words and ruin it all? I’ve been avoiding him all these months, knowing I couldn’t forever. Knowing it was wrong. This is his baby too, right? When I saw him at CC’s the other day, I didn’t know how to act, what to say. I—I think I miss him. There. I said it out loud. I miss Dan. I miss the way he made me laugh and how he made me feel. And now you know. But you have all along, haven’t you? You saw me with him, didn’t you?”

  Tears spilled into sobbing. She had put it out of her mind, the notion Henny had watched his wife, the woman who promised him forever, make love to another man. It didn’t matter it was Dan. Good guy Dan. Funny guy Dan. Old high school buddy Daniel-freaking-Greene. It would have been better if he’d been a stranger, or some asshole she wouldn’t think a second thought about. Sex was biology. Making love was an entirely different thing.

  A touch, first cold, then spreading warmth through her body. Benny stiffened, but she didn’t bolt upright. Keeping her head enfolded in her arms, she waited. The touch moved up and down her back, then in circles. Soothing. Comforting. Like her mother did when she was small and so easily upset. It made her sniff back tears. It let her forget Dan and Henny. For now.

  “Who—who are you?”

  “August.”

  Not a voice. Not really. A sound inside her, making itself known.

  “Why are you…contacting me?”

  “You talk. I listen. You need a friend. So do I.”

  Lying on her belly was getting uncomfortable. Benny shifted. “I’m going to sit up. Okay?”

  “Do as you wish, but I believe you must not look at me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I only know when you do, I am pulled away.”

  “Okay. I won’t look at you.” Benny pushed herself upright, careful to keep her eyes on Henny’s tombstone. She felt—August?—that presence off to her left. Shielding her periphery, she rested her elbows to her knees. “Is…was your name August?”

  “I prefer Augie.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Male.”

  “Are you buried here?”

  “I am. I lived in this town for forty years.”

  “I’ve lived here all my life. Does your family still live in these parts?”

  “They left long ago. We are forgotten here.”

  “This is so…wow. I have so many questions, my head is kind of spinning.”

  “Soon, but now, our time is short. Already it pulls me back.”

  “Back where?”

  “Where I have been. You are the first. My first. I am not sure how all this works. I didn’t know—”

  “Didn’t know what?” Benny lifted her head. “August? Augie?”

  But she felt no presence. Chancing a glance out of the corner of her eye, she saw nothing. Her shoulders slumped. Not another car, scooter or bike awaited a rider. She was the only living soul in the cemetery. Pressing her palm flat to her husband’s tombstone, she said, “I think I’m going nuts-o, Henny. What the hell is happening to me?”

  That warmth returned to her shoulder. No presence. No sound inside her making itself heard. Just the warm sensation proving she wasn’t alone. Benny lifted her hand from the granite marker. It trembled, but she moved it slowly, touching the spot to make sure it was real.

  “Augie?”

  The warmth gripped, like a hand grasping hers.

  * * * *

  “That was fast.”

  “But I did it, Harriet. Do you think I frightened her?”

  “Nah. Not that one. She’s been waiting all her life for a man like you.”

  “I am glad to see your sense of humor isn’t as decayed as your corpse.”

  “Be nice, Augie, or I won’t let you in on a little secret about being dead.”

  “I am nice. What secret?”

  “You’re working too hard at it.”

  “At being dead? I assure you, I’m having no trouble with—”

  “Not that, you ninny. I mean you’re pushing the boundary too hard, that’s why it keeps pulling you back. Just be.”

  “Just be? What does that mean?”

  “Try it next time, and you’ll see.”

  * * * *

  Bitterly Cemetery was big enough to make checking each headstone for the name August daunting. Asking Charlie to let her into the archives was a waste of time. The cemetery wasn’t computerized and sifting through probably nonexistent old files was even more daunting than walking the whol
e thing. She’d see if it happened again first. Then, if she wasn’t nuts-o, she would ask Augie himself where his final resting place was.

  Only he wasn’t resting.

  Benny tucked the hair coming lose from her ponytail behind her ear. It was at that too long to leave loose at work, too short to put up length. Annoying, to say the least. Growing it out always seemed like a good idea, until it reached this point and she chopped it into a bob to tease at her chin. Her mother always claimed the fashion magazines said tall, curvy girls should not wear their hair short.

  “You’re far away, sugar.”

  Benny turned to the familiar drawl, a smile coming to her lips. Savannah took the clippers from her hand.

  “Why don’t you go to my office, rest a spell.”

  “Again?” Forced laughter trembled. Benny cleared her throat. “I’m not tired. Just preoccupied.”

  “You have been preoccupied since the day I met you,” Savannah said. “I believe it must be your natural state.”

  “I used to daydream.” Benny hung her head. “Now it’s more like nightmares all the time.”

  Savannah bundled her into a hug. “You need a break. To my office with you. No sass-back. I’ll bring you tea. We’ll have a cup together.”

  “Herbal,” Benny tossed over her shoulder as Savannah gently shoved her in the direction of her office. Grateful for the whining air conditioner perched in the window, Benny slumped into the comfy office chair rather than on the cot where her boss sometimes slept during lambing season. She breathed deeply, collecting thoughts before any more escaped.

  Savannah pushed through the door, and set a cup of fragrant tea down on the desk. “You okay, Benny?”

  “I keep telling you, I’m fine.”

  “And I keep not believing you.”

  Benny chuckled softly into her mug. Smart woman. But she took the opportunity as it came. “I’m thinking about taking a trip. Getting out of Bitterly for a while.”

  “Oh? When?”

  “After Labor Day, don’t worry.”