Free Ghost Image by Ellen Crosby

Please stay on the scene and meet the officer.” She disconnected.
    As soon as possible. Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Longer? Kevin was dead, gone, so no police cruisers and ambulances with their flashing lights and wailing sirens were going to come racing up 14th Street.
    I turned back to him. He was lying on his right side in a contorted angle in the cramped space. His left hand was thrown up over his face as though shielding himself from something or someone, and his outstretched right hand was clenched in a fist. His eyes were wide open, as though he’d been surprised, and judging by his position, he had fallen forward. Somehow he must have hit his head, maybe on the steps or the sharp corner of the stone wall or the padlocked wrought-iron gate, which had stopped his momentum, because a pool of blood underneath his right shoulder had oozed onto the stone floor and seeped into his habit. Both his feet rested on the last step, and dried mud embedded with bits of mulch was stuck to the bottom of his sandals.
    Kevin was a good man, a holy man of grace and erudition and scholarship, fierce in his beliefs, loyal to his friends, devoted in his faith. I didn’t want to remember him stripped of his dignity like this, blood spattered, his kind, intelligent blue eyes now staring blindly, his habit rucked up to reveal worn, threadbare trousers and pale flesh, a sense of death already permeating this place like a bad stink.
    Fading daylight poured in through a fretted skylight inside the locked chapel. The wind rustled the trees, the shifting shadows rippling like the lashings of a whip on the walls and floor. The spine-tingling feeling that something was crawling on my skin made me wonder if I was being watched. A replica of thetomb where Jesus had been laid after he was crucified was only a few steps from the grotto. I couldn’t remember if that gate was locked as well. The air fizzed with a low-pitched vibrating whine. I scrambled up the stairs, needing to get away from this closed-in space with its prisonlike entrance, to the open space of the upper garden and the sanctuary of the church.
    Halfway back to the main garden path I skidded on the muddy spot where I’d slipped before, and a branch from one of the vines brushed against me like fingers raking my skin. I whisked it away and ran, the crazy idea flitting through my mind that the spirits of the dead haunted this alcove and the vines and branches that ran along the walls had begun magically weaving together to form a barrier that would imprison me in the Gethsemane Grotto.
    I raced up the ramp to the Rosary Portico, colliding with a friar who was striding toward me. He was tall and sturdy, with ruddy cheeks and a mop of dark brown hair, and wore a heavy dark plaid flannel shirt over his habit.
    He grabbed my arms. “Hey, what’s wrong? Hold on there. Why are you running?”
    â€œWhere’s your guardian?” I said. “Where’s Father Xavier? I just found Brother Kevin Boyle in the Gethsemane Grotto. I’m so sorry . . . he’s dead.”
    The words tumbled out and the friar flinched. He was young, in his early twenties. “What are you talking about? Dead? Are you sure?”
    â€œHe’s lying at the bottom of the stairs and there’s blood. He’s . . . believe me, he’s dead. I called 911 and the police are on their way.”
    A scowl crossed his face. “The police? Why did you call them?”
    â€œBecause that’s what you do when someone dies, that’s why.” He was staring at me like I was speaking in tongues. “You need to get Father Xavier.”
    â€œWho are you?”
    â€œSophie Medina. A friend of Kevin’s. Who are you?”
    â€œPaul Zarin.” He let go of my arms and pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket. “Don’t go anywhere. Stay right here.”
    He sprinted away and slipped into the church through a side door. Kevin had mentioned