I groaned. This was their beef—the spirits in the Oaks wanted to be given equal rights as the living. They wanted to know clairvoyants like me wouldn’t force them into the light. No matter how many times I explained that I could only control what I did, it didn’t matter.
These spirits wanted me to speak for all humankind.
My world would’ve been more realistic if I pretended I was a princess and walked around in a tiara and ballroom gown.
“You know I have no control over that.”
Mildred snarled. “Then I ain’t talkin’ to ya.” Her head sank into the earth.
“I need a favor.”
That got her attention. Mildred’s head darted up. She cocked one eye at me. “What sort of favor?”
“I need y’all to allow a spirit in here with you.”
Mildred sailed up from the ground and stood at her full height of four foot three inches. Okay, maybe she wasn’t that short, but she wasn’t tall, either. Technically shorter than me, and I wasn’t much more than five foot two.
But I didn’t need height to have attitude.
“What spirit?” she said suspiciously.
“I don’t know her last name, but the first name’s Francine.”
Mildred’s jaw dropped. “No! Not Francine! Not her. She can’t come in here. Not allowed!”
Voices rumbled all around us. Next thing I knew ghostly apparitions were floated up from the ground and sitting on grave markers.
“What’s all this commotion?” Captain William Fitzpatrick Blount asked.
He had been a captain in the Confederacy and wore his uniform even in death.
“This young whippersnapper is trying to make a mess of our cemetery.” Granny Mildred spat like a delicate lady, aiming for my foot.
“Watch it,” I growled. I did my best to shoot the captain a winning smile but was afraid I looked more like a cat in heat than anything else. “There’s a spirit whose help I need. There’s just one teensy little problem.”
“It’s Francine,” Mildred blurted.
I slapped my thigh in frustration. “Will you please give me a chance to explain before you mouth off about something that isn’t even your business?”
“Excuse me.” Mildred sailed over to me and glared up my nostrils. “You’re the one who appeared and wants us to take Francine in so that you can go off”—her hand flicked the air like she was shooing flies—“and do whatever it is you’re going to do.” She frowned. “I just realized you never told me what it is you’re going to do.”
“Captain,” I pleaded, “I need the Backwoods Banshee—Francine Spivey’s help in solving a murder. Someone framed my friend, and Francine may offer some assistance. But the thing is, in exchange for my help she wants to come here to rest.”
Captain Blount stroked his mustache. “Francine was kicked out of here, you know.”
I grimaced. This could really put a cramp in my plans. “She was? For what?”
“Causing a disturbance,” Captain Blount said.
“She was a nuisance,” Granny Mildred added. “The worst. She would zoom on down to town, get people riled up and then teenagers would come out here looking for ghosts.”
She pointed to a chip in her headstone. “See that? One time a kid kicked the stone so hard it broke.” She wagged a disapproving finger at me. “And that’s all because of Francine.”
“That’s why she took on the role of banshee,” Blount explained, “because she had nowhere else to go.”
“But all that was years ago, right? What if Francine has changed?”
But even as I said it, I sounded doubtful. Spirits didn’t undergo temporary insanity or giant shifts in personality. At least, not that I’d ever seen, and I’d met plenty of them.
