Chapter Fifteen 

Wyatt lay on the grass covered hill and stared up at the late summer sun. The breeze was blowing through the long grasses and the surrounding trees. If he closed his eyes and thought hard enough he could faintly remember what the heat of the sun felt like. He could faintly recall the feel of the wind against his skin.

But he didn't dare close his eyes because every time he dared to all he could see was Francine. Six long days it had been since he'd seen her. Six long days since he had held her in his arms and felt her body against him. When he closed his eyes he would see her soft lips, her pale skin, her freckles, her wide brown eyes. He would see the crinkles around her nose when she smiled and the way she rolled her eyes whenever anything irritated or annoyed her.

He would hear her sweet, soft voice telling him she loved him or scolding him over one thing or another. God, how he missed her. Nothing held any meaning for him anymore. Not without Francine.

After leaving her he had transported himself back to the only other place he knew; Vicksburg. He had tried to fall back into his old routine of terrorizing the tourists and guides but now instead of finding it funny when no one could see him and would run off scared, he just found it depressing. He had liked being seen. He had also liked not being seen by Janice and having her not be afraid of him. He missed their back and forth banter, his written and hers verbal.

He heard a bus pull up to the visitor center and he quickly rose to his feet. The sound of children talking excitedly came to his ears and the faintest of smiles came to his face. Maybe being around some kids was just what he needed. They'd always been able to make him smile before.

He walked down the hill and saw the children all lining up beside their yellow bus as one of the guides walked out to meet them. The kids appeared to be around ten years old. Probably another group of fourth or fifth graders. Their excitement was thick in the air and Wyatt knew it was probably because today there were a bunch of men dressed up in uniform. Wyatt had wondered what they were doing since it wasn't the time of year for a reenactment but apparently they were here to entertain the children and give them a view of what soldiers looked like during the war.

Wyatt followed the children, their teacher, chaperones and guide around the park. When they stepped into the barracks, Wyatt sat down on his bed and watched them as they listened to the guide speak. Wyatt didn't listen to the guides words, instead he focused on the kids. There was one little girl there that made his heart hurt.

She had dark curls, brown eyes and freckles. She looked so much like Francine had looked when she had first come to his park that he had done a double take when he had first seen her. He craved some form of contact with someone. He stared straight at the little girl as she listened to her teacher and slowly her head turned toward him. Wyatt felt his heart jump and then she continued turning her head and he realized she was just turning to look out the window at a 'soldier' that was walking by.

Wyatt roared with a mixture of pain, sadness, rage, frustration and loneliness. He grabbed a ceramic lamp off of one of the tables and threw it with all his might. It shattered against the far wall and everyone in the tiny barracks screamed and ran out the door, leaving him alone.

Wyatt could hear the guide trying to calm the frightened children. He didn't feel any guilt for scaring them all. They needed to stay out of his home. He curled up on the bed and hugged his pillow close, imagining that he could smell the scent of cinnamon spice on the fabric.

***

Several hours later yet another bus pulled up outside. Wyatt rose from the bed, angered that even more people were going to be here. The reenactment soldiers were pissing him off. How dare those fakes and frauds pretend and act as if they had any idea what being a civil war soldier was like! They hadn't walked hundreds of miles in the freezing cold with holes in their boots, just to get in a bloody battle and watch their friends fall, knowing they would never get back up. They hadn't heard the pain filled screams of men as doctors were forced to strap them down and saw off their arms and legs. What did these soft men know about the hardships that had been faced?

The guides pissed him off as they talked about camp life and the history of this land. They only knew what was written in their books. Wyatt was the only one who had been here for the last one hundred and fifty years. He was the only one who knew first hand every single thing that had happened every single day since the battle had ended

The children pissed him off as well. They didn't care one bit about the lost souls, the blood, the death that had taken place here. They cared about getting a day out of school and that was all. Wyatt strode through the wall and his feet seemed to carry him on their own to the cemetery. He had not been to his stone since he'd come back.

He stared down at his name written on the faded rock. In his current angry state, the sight of his headstone did not help matters. He wasn't really dead! Dammit, he could see! He could hear! He could talk! His heart could love! His hands could touch! He wasn't dead! He kicked with all his might over and over again until the weather worn stone broke beneath the onslaught of his boots. A man who felt pain and was made of true flesh and bone would have shattered his foot and his leg. He would never have been able to break the stone, but Wyatt wasn't normal.

He grinned a humorless grin of satisfaction at the sight of the broken stone and then made his way back down to the visitors center.

"Can you believe they're making us watch a movie?!" he heard an angry child's voice say.

"It's about to storm," another girl replied as she looked up at the sky. Wyatt looked up and saw that she was right. He hadn't noticed. Rain meant nothing when you couldn't feel it.

"I know, but Pinnochio? I mean what do they think we are, babies?"

"It's the only movie they had here because one of the guides has babies."

"Who would want to watch a movie like this? Like a wooden puppet could ever actually ask a magic fairy to make him a real boy and have his wish be granted....." The children's voices trailed off as they were ushered inside for snacks and a movie, to wait out the upcoming storm.

Wyatt stood there even as the rain began pouring down and he thought about what they had said. Ask a magic fairy to make him a real man? He didn't know any magic fairies but he did know a witch, or whatever the heck Madam Zinga was. Could she make him real? She had kept him from passing and made him a spirit so it only stood to reason she could make him a real man again.

Why had he not thought of this before?? He could be with Francine. He could be the man that she needed. The man she had always wanted! He could give her everything that she had ever dreamed of having!

Feeling the first joy he had felt in six days, Wyatt closed his eyes. He had gotten good at transporting himself from place to place.

When he opened his eyes again he nearly let out a yell when he realized he was standing in the middle of a crowded city street and before he had time to move a huge passenger bus drove straight through him. Wyatt quickly made his way to the sidewalk and looked around. He laughed when he realized he was in Francine's city and he had appeared right next the Starbucks where he had gotten her coffees and cappuccinos everyday.

Maybe he wasn't as good at transportation as he thought since he had meant to show up at Madam Zinga's and that was a good forty-five minute walk away. He decided that walking there would be his best bet.

When he finally made it to the shop, he walked in and the bell chimed his entrance. Madam Zinga was there and she was sitting on the back couch, before a fire despite the hotness of the day. She was wearing a dark orange velvet dress today and she was once again playing with her cup of bones.

"Why are you here Wyatt?" she asked, her tone was short and clipped and it was easy to tell that she was very angry.

"I need to ask you to do something for me," Wyatt replied as he quickly crossed the floor and sat down on the chair across from her.

She looked up from the bones on the table and her yellow eyes flashed with temper, "She came to me you know. Asked me to track you down because she was worried about you being alone. I told her I could not, even though I knew you were in Vicksburg. Why would you leave her after I gave her back to you?"
"Because I can't give her what she needs when I'm like this... Not when I'm stuck in this useless state you left me in."

Madam Zinga reached out and slapped him sharply across the face. Wyatt covered his cheek as his eyes widened in shock. He hadn't realized she could touch him and pain was something he hadn't felt in a long long time.

"You hit me!" he exclaimed.

"I do worse than that if you keep up with this ungrateful dribble!"

"She wants things I can't give her like this!" Wyatt explained.

Madam Zinga waved her hand, "We want all kinds of things that we don't really need. When we get what we need we realize that what we wanted is not really what we needed at all."

It took Wyatt's brain a moment to catch up with her words and when he understood them he shook his head, "I can't be with her like this. It's not fair..."

"Not fair to who? Not fair to you because you can't pound your chest and scare other men away? You are just as foolish in this life as you were in all the others."

"Then you should be used to it by now," Wyatt offered with a grin. Madam Zinga was in no mood for his antics. She was angry. Angrier than she could ever remember being. How dare they question her and her wisdom. She would show this Wyatt the strength of her powers and then he would regret ever questioning her.

"So what is it you are wanting, Wyatt? For me to kill Francine so you can be the same?"

Wyatt's eyes widened with horror and he jumped to his feet, "What??? No!! I want you to make me real. Make me alive again, here in this time with her. Surely if you can make me a spirit you can make me alive again now."

Madam Zinga went back to her bones as she scooped them back into her cup. She was silent for a long time and Wyatt felt panic stirring within him. What if she said no? What if she said it couldn't be done? What would he do then? Go back to Vicksburg? He shook his head. He would not let himself believe that what he wanted was impossible.

"Madam Zinga can do this but Madam Zinga is not happy. You are going to have to pay a dear price for your doubts and ungratefulness."

"I'll pay any price, Madam Zinga! Just name it and it's yours!" Wyatt exclaimed.

She hefted her large frame from the couch and stuck her crooked finger in his nose, "What I want is no form of payment you can hand to me," she informed him.

Wyatt frowned, "Then what?"

"If you choose to be with Francine in this form; the form I gave to you, the form I risked myself to let you have, then you can be together for this whole life and then when her life ends you will both go off to the hereafter to spend eternity together. But if you continue with this selfish foolishness then I will be forced to cut your life together short."

"What do you mean cut it short?"

"Tragedy will end your life together in this life and you will be separated for many years until you both join in the hereafter. The choice is yours."

Wyatt sat down hard on the couch. His mind raced. If he became real for Francine, he would die before they grew old. He wasn't afraid of dying. After all he had done it once before, "How long will we have?" Wyatt asked.

Madam Zinga walked over to the fire and began to stir the ashes with the long iron poker, "That is not for Madam Zinga to tell you."

"Why the hell not?" Wyatt demanded.

Madam Zinga swung the poker around and jabbed it straight toward Wyatt's heart. Thankfully it passed through Wyatt and he glared up at the angry woman, "I will not do you any more favors than what I have just offered. If that is not good enough for you then you can....."

"No, wait..." Wyatt pleaded as he stood up and held his hands out in an offering of peace. "I'll do it."

He could give Francine everything she wanted. He could meet her parents, he could take her out and show her off, he could marry her in whatever house she wanted and hopefully there would even be time for them to become parents before Madam Zinga made good on her promise.

"You want to sacrifice so much time?" Madam Zinga asked with disbelief.

"I would die to give her what she wants," he vowed and he saw Madam Zinga's gaze flicker though he did not know why. "I've been worse than dead for a long time. Whatever time I have alive and flesh and blood with her will be well worth the sacrifice. And you said yourself that as long as we are together in this life, we'll have eternity together in the hereafter."

"Fine," Madam Zinga said sharply as she hung the poker back on its stand. "Madam Zinga will do this for you though I have a feeling you will live to regret it."

"Actually, according to you, I won't," Wyatt replied, trying to force humor into his voice. Again Madam Zinga's yellow eyes flickered and Wyatt frowned, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said, waving him off. "Madam Zinga is angry at you and little Francine's foolishness. Your selfishness!"

"I'll..."

"Stop speaking. Go through that door to the back room and I will be in there momentarily."

Wyatt quickly did as he was told. He could hardly contain his excitement. He was going to be a living, breathing man again and he would be with Francine and what time they had together would be perfect.

He would make sure of that and he would make sure that when he did die, she would always know how much he had really and truly loved her. Not just because she was the only woman who could see, hear and touch him but because she was the only woman he wanted to see, hear and touch. She was everything to him and there would be no room in her mind for doubts once he was done giving her everything he had to give.

Wyatt looked around the back room and felt a shiver run down his spine. This woman was freaky. Skulls, candles, crucifixes... she had it all. There was even a large stone table with straps in the center of the room. He hoped he wouldn't have to lay down on that.

"Lay down on that table," Madam Zinga ordered as she bustled into the room with a sweep of her velvet skirts.

Wyatt grumbled under his breath but did as he was told, "Anything for Franny."

Madam Zinga merely offered a grunt in reply as she went about lighting the hundreds of white candles around the tiny stone walled room. She lit some bowls of sticks that smelled like witch hazel and jasmine and made Wyatt's nose burn. He watched her nervously as she walked toward him with a long silver knife in her hand.

"What's that for?" he asked.

"No speaking. If you want this then you just lie there and shut up and let Madam Zinga work."

"Yes ma'am," Wyatt watched her nervously as she stood above him and began to chant. He couldn't hope to know what she was saying and he had to force himself to keep from jumping off the table when she held the knife high above his chest.

Seconds ticked on into minutes and still she chanted as she stared up at the ceiling. Her voice grew in intensity and then suddenly, without warning, her arms came down and the knife sunk deep into Wyatt's heart. His eyes widened with horror at the pain that coursed through him. He felt his blood pumping from his body and he could hear it dripping on the stone floor. How was this possible? His mind was racing. He looked at Madam Zinga to find that her yellow eyes were locked on his but she offered him no assurances or explanations.

Her face began to dim and fade as he felt his mind shutting down. Blackness began to engulf him and after one wet, blood filled gasp his eyes slid closed and he knew no more.