The First Time I Died Read online

  The First Time I Died

  Jo Macgregor

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  First published in 2018 by Jo Macgregor

  ISBN: 978-0-6399317-2-2 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-0-6399317-3-9 (eBook)

  Copyright 2018 Jo Macgregor

  The right of Joanne Macgregor, writing as Jo Macgregor, to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All the characters, institutions and events described in it are fictional and the products of the author’s imagination.

  Cover design by Jenny Zemanek at Seedlings Design Studio

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  The first time I died, I didn’t come back alone…

  When Garnet McGee returns to her small Vermont hometown for the holidays, she vows to solve the mystery of the murder which shattered her life ten years ago.

  But then the unexpected happens — she dies in an accident and gets brought back to life by paramedics.

  Now she’s hearing words, seeing visions and experiencing strange sensations. Are these merely symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and an over-active imagination, or is she getting messages from a paranormal presence?

  Garnet has always prided herself on being logical and rational, but trying to catch a killer without embracing her shadow self is getting increasingly difficult. And dangerous, because in a town full of secrets, it seems like everybody has a motive for murder.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  Epilogue

  Note from Author & Acknowledgements

  “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”

  — William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

  Prologue

  July 2008

  The covered bridge crouched open-mouthed on the road ahead. Bushes grew densely on either side of the opening. Vines sent tender shoots and tendrils around the weathered timber sidings and through the lattice truss work to probe the dark interior.

  I reduced my speed, checked for oncoming traffic, and drove into the tunnel. The wooden slats creaked beneath the weight of my car, and the roar of the Kent River rushing over the rocks ten feet below reverberated in the confined space. I crawled along, torn between the fear that the floorboards would give way beneath me if I went faster and the irrational dread that the low, arched beams and wooden walls would close in on me, trapping me in their dank grip.

  I shivered and gooseflesh tightened the skin on my arms — a sure sign, my mother would say, that a ghost was walking over my grave.

  I hunched over the steering wheel, gripping it with both hands as the shadows wove a deep gloom behind me. On and on the tunnel stretched, for far longer, surely, than its two-hundred-and-seven-foot length. I kept my eyes on the square of light glimmering ahead, accelerated over the last twenty feet, and popped out into the muggy warmth of the July day on the other side.

  My eyes were watering — possibly due to the dazzling summer sunshine, but probably because that’s just what they did these days. Tears flowed even when I wasn’t thinking about him, about what had happened. They just came, and sometimes they went.

  I snagged my Ray Bans from the glove compartment and fumbled them on. The rest of my clothes and possessions were stuffed in the suitcases now packed in the trunk, along with my week-old high school diploma. In a few hours, I’d be in Boston, ready to unpack and start a new life.

  I spared a brief glance for the rusted town limits sign as I whizzed past. The pole listed sideways as if it, too, was unable to bear the weight of its burden. It was stuck there, keeling over in slow-motion surrender, but I was getting away. Leaving the last year far behind me.

  And if I had my way, I’d never come back.

  1

  NOW

  Saturday December 16, 2017

  Afterward, whenever anyone asked me to tell them about what happened, I never knew when to begin the story. I think it all started when I went back home, but maybe it was when I died. Or when he did. Or even the year before that, when we had all the rain. Perhaps it was the meeting with my faculty supervisor that started the chain of motion — I’d like to be able to blame him.

  I knew where it started, though — in a small Vermont town tucked into the cleavage between the Green Mountains and Kent Hill, ground zero of several dying businesses, multiple illicit affairs, endless dull gossip and one grand mystery. The last time I’d driven this highway, I’d been eighteen years old and headed in the opposite direction, determined never to return.

  And yet here I was, headed back to my hometown.

  A new wooden sign, complete with painted crest and brick pillars on either side, materialized out of the mist at the town limits. In fancy hand-lettering, the sign proclaimed: Welcome to Pitchford, Vermont. Chartered 1767. Population 2826.

  The welcome sign wasn’t the only change. A few hundred yards after the turnoff to the old Johnson farm with its weather-beaten barns and herds of Holstein dairy cows, and on the other side of Kent Hill, was the new and improved home of Beaumont Brothers Spring Water Company. Pure water, pure life, their tastefully subdued signage announced. According to my father, who occasionally updated me on town news, the new bottling plant had been built the year after I graduated high school.

  By then I was already in Boston, flunking my first year of premed. My second year wasn’t any better. I spent nights in my room, lost in the oblivion of sleep. I struggled to get out of bed in the mornings, couldn’t concentrate in lectures, didn’t care enough to study, refused to talk to anyone about it. I was in limbo, waiting for my new life to begin, or my old life to let go of me. When neither happened, I dropped out and ran away to the other side of the planet. For over a year, I worked as a volunteer on conservation programs in South Africa — tagging rhinos, cleaning cages in a primate sanctuary, caring for wild dogs and cheetahs in breeding programs, and drinking enough of the cheap local beer to anesthetize an elephant’s memory. My own, however, remained stubbornly persistent.

  Back in Boston, I began the long journey of studying psychology, intending to understand the faulty minds and repair the wounded hearts of the world. Although if my master�
�s faculty supervisor, Professor Kenneth Perry, was to be believed, then even back then my true — albeit unconscious — goal had been the impossible task of understanding and repairing myself.

  At our most recent monthly progress meeting, Perry had studied me over the top of his spectacles, as if trying to fathom the depths of my motivations. “Your Statistical Methods II credit is still not complete. More importantly, your thesis is still nowhere bloody near done, despite you buggering around with it for years. Years!”

  Perry was a Brit, originally from Exeter, and he used words like bugger, bloody and bollocks all the time. I’d caught the habit from him.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “It’s just that I keep falling down the rabbit hole of research and finding more interesting side topics.”

  He raised an eyebrow, and I hurried on.

  “I’m thinking of changing the focus to look at how the social construction of grief is mediated by support on social media. What do you think? I could look at how the memorialization of the lost one on social media sites both fixes their identity and changes the identity of the survivor.”

  I rubbed a thumb against the tip of my forefinger, where a thin filament of skin was peeling away. I wanted to nibble it off, but knowing Perry, he’d interpret that as a regressive oral gesture — a substitution for thumb-sucking.

  “And as for stats — my brain just doesn’t work that way.”

  “Bollocks,” he said.

  “You’d think I’d get a little sympathy from the Psych department.”

  He gave me a wry smile. “Sympathy? If I was your therapist, I’d be more likely to interpret your endless delays.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I’d explore whether you really want to do this.”

  “You think I should dump grief altogether and find a whole new topic?”

  “I’m not talking about your poxy thesis. I’m talking about all of this.” He spread his arms wide. “About psychology.”

  “You’re implying I don’t really want to be a psychologist?” I said, outraged. “After I’ve spent so long studying it?”

  “I’m asking because you’ve spent so long studying it. You should be finishing your doctorate by now. And instead, you’re still mucking about with your Masters.”

  “That’s not because I don’t want to be a psychologist.”

  “Isn’t it?” He tilted his head and contemplated me shrewdly. “You’ve heard of the concept of ‘the wounded healer’?”

  “The theory that people study psychology as a roundabout way of dealing with their own issues, instead of getting therapy for themselves?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “You think that applies to me?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Bloody shrink. Answering a question with a question. I tried to pinch off the irritating bit of skin with what remained of my nails.

  “You’ve had some difficult things happen in your life,” he said. “Issues with your family of origin.”

  “We’ve all had those,” I muttered.

  “And a tragic, traumatic loss.”

  That was a low blow. I shifted my gaze away from him and stared out of the window, across the university lawns. On this early December evening, no students lingered on the icy stone benches to debate Nietzsche or the reality of experience. Oak trees stretched arthritic limbs — bare of all but the most tenacious leaves — up to the sullen gray sky.

  “Garnet?”

  I turned back to face him.

  “I think it might be useful for you to take a moratorium.”

  “You don’t think I can finish. You don’t believe I’ve got what it takes,” I accused.

  He snorted. “Really? That’s your best attempt at derailing me?”

  I shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

  “Take a break. Spend some time thinking about what you really want to do with your life.”

  “What — I’m supposed to hang around my apartment making pro and con lists?”

  “Go home.”

  “This is home.”

  “Get some country air. Make some decisions. Visit your family.”

  His tone — concerned, gentle even — made me uncomfortable. I didn’t want to go home, particularly at this time of year. Keeping my hands in my lap, out of his line of vision, I worried at the loose skin on my finger.

  “When did you last see your parents?” he asked.

  “A few months ago.”

  They visited me twice a year, every year without fail — for the fourth of July and for Christmas — but my mother wouldn’t be up to travelling to Boston this December.

  “Didn’t you say your mother had a stroke?” he asked.

  “A transient ischemic attack,” I corrected.

  “Close enough.”

  It had been close enough to scare the crap out of Dad. He’d said her face had drooped on one side and that for several minutes she’d rambled on confusedly — more so than usual, apparently. Then she’d lost her balance and broken her left ankle, and she’d had to spend three weeks resting with it elevated. It was still in a knee-to-toe cast.

  “She’s recovered well,” I said. “And she’s on blood pressure meds and blood thinners, so it shouldn’t happen again.”

  “Even so, the TIA may be a warning of things to come. Your parents are never going to be physically healthier or mentally sharper than they are now. How old are they, anyway?”

  “My father’s sixty-three and my mother’s sixty-four, and apart from this latest episode, they’re in great health.”

  “No one’s immortal. Spend the holidays with them, drink eggnog or whatever your favorite festive tipple is.”

  “Irish coffee, served extra hot. No one ever serves it hot enough. Although I did find this great place in Beacon Hill that—”

  “Garnet,” he said, interrupting my attempt to change the subject, “how many Christmases with them do you think you have left?”

  Not realizing what I was doing until it was done, I tore the filament of skin off with my teeth, leaving a thin strip of raw skin. Damn, that was going to hurt later.

  “You can let me know your decision in January,” Perry said.

  His suggestion wasn’t entirely without appeal. My parents had pleaded with me to spend the holidays with them in Pitchford, plus my father had privately begged for my help in persuading my mother to close her sandals-and-candles shop in town. If we got her to agree, then he’d be grateful for my help in sorting, clearing and purging the contents. And there was a part of me that wanted in on that action, that longed to toss all the crystals, dream catchers, incense sticks and astrology charts into the trash, where they belonged.

  “And if you decide to continue, I want your completed thesis by the end of May,” Perry said. Although I didn’t always get his dry, British sense of humor, I was pretty sure he wasn’t kidding.

  “You’re giving me a deadline? An ultimatum?”

  He nodded.

  “Bastard,” I said, just loud enough for him to hear.

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  “Is that all?”

  “One more thing — and you’re not going to like this either. If you decide to complete your master’s, I’ll require you to enter therapy.”

  “What? For myself — like, as the patient?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “To address your social adjustment issues, and to treat your excoriation disorder.”

  “I do not have excoriation disorder. I just bite my nails.”

  “Please, Garnet, I’ve seen you draw blood picking at the skin on your fingers and your lips. Do you pick or peel anywhere else, or do any other kind of self-mutilation?”

  I scowled at him. “And I do not have social adjustment issues.”

  “So you’ve started socializing with friends in the evenings and on weekends? You have a boyfriend?”

  “For your information, I went out on a date just last week. Had sex afterward
, too!”

  “Spoken to him since?” When I didn’t answer, Perry added, “You’re afraid of intimacy, Garnet. You need to work through that. How can you help others unless you’ve dealt with your own stuff?”

  “I’m going now.” I grabbed my bag. “I’ll see you in January.”

  “You have a very merry Christmas, now!”

  Which was how, a week later, I came to be driving down the icy highway that cut through the woods, headed back to my hometown for the holidays. My Honda’s headlights picked out the details along the road — the picnic site at Flat Rock, the tall pines and firs looming in the mist like gray giants, their boughs already heavy with the season’s first real snow, and up ahead, the covered bridge that straddled Kent River. I tried to stare it down. Blinked first.

  A shadow broke from the dark mass of trees to my left and bounded into the road ahead of me. I slammed on the brakes, wrenched the wheel. Tires squealed. The car lurched, spun sideways, slid across the road and came to a juddering halt with the nose a hand’s breadth away from the rough bark of a tree trunk. Heart hammering at the base of my throat, I cursed my stupidity. I knew how to drive on these icy roads. Dad had drummed it into me as a teenager. Drive slowly, pulse the brakes, turn into the skid.

  And be on the lookout for moose.

  Wiping cold sweat off my upper lip with a trembling hand, I started the stalled car and began backing up. A loud horn sounded. I snapped my head to the side to see a black Suburban snaking out to avoid hitting my reversing rear as it sped down the highway.

  Damn. I’d almost killed myself twice in two minutes.

  I took several calming breaths to damp down the adrenaline and cortisol racing through my veins, then inched back into the road, checking each direction repeatedly before setting off in the direction of town at half my previous speed. I slowed down even further as I approached the covered bridge. It had a new roof and reinforced concrete abutments — repairs made, so a small information sign said, after storm damage sustained during Hurricane Irene in 2011.