Cornhusker Cons: Psychics, Clairvoyants, and Mystics in the Heartland. Fran had never actually read the book in which their father’s scams had been made public. An entire chapter had been dedicated to him and his two partners.

“Just put that back, babe.You won’t gain anything by reading that.” Dal-Rae reshelved the book on Black fashion history she’d been looking at to join her girlfriend at the Metaphysics shelf in the corner. 

Fran shook their head, clutching the book with both hands, and continued staring at the black-and-white seance photo on the cover. No one had believed in their dad more than they had. They’d witnessed many of his consultations and had often joined in his rituals when they were younger. They would sit cross-legged on the floor facing each other. Fran’s dad would hold his hands palms up, and Fran would place their hands over his. They remembered how rough his hands felt, how small they seemed even to a young Fran, and that he never held their hands, only kept them pressed together. Their dad would close his eyes, prompting Fran to do the same, but Fran had never been any good at sitting still without stimulation, so they usually opened their eyes. 

Their dad would take a big breath, and soon Fran would start to feel something like static electricity between their hands. His eyes would dart from side to side beneath his eyelids, as if frantically searching for something in the dark. Then would come the breeze, making their dad’s hair seem alive as it twitched in indecision—would the ethereal wind win, or the cheap Walgreens hair gel? 

Now, standing here in this bookstore, they for once let themself question how many of their memories were just wishful thinking. It couldn’t all be fake. 

Dal-Rae pried the book from their hands and set it aside on a rocking chair. The basement of this little bookstore housed all of the nonfiction along with a few ugly rugs, mismatched chairs, and a patchy cat content to lie down on a shelf and watch over the shoppers. 

Underneath the “Psychics” shelf was a half-full shelf labeled “Ghosts/Afterlife.” One book, smaller than the others, boasted the title Haunted Cemeteries.

Fran looked up at the cat. It blinked its deep brown eyes slowly before letting out a small meow. It was decided, then. They would take the cat’s advice. “Let’s go to the cemetery tonight.” 

~ ~ ~ 

“If there were any ghosts itching to talk to us, they’d have shown up by now.” Dal-Rae had long since run out of daylight to do anything but complain. When she’d put on her tight, pink denim skirt that morning, she hadn’t factored in a night of sitting on the moist grass, muscles tensed in case she needed to run from some crazy person. Because only crazy people would hang out in cemeteries at night. Which made her crazy. And Fran. 

Fran snapped another photo on their film camera, though even with a flash, Dal-Rae wasn’t sure what they were hoping to capture. She wasn’t fixing to stay there overnight. 

“Not necessarily,” Fran said. “Once, I was with some friends at a haunted barn a couple hours away. There was supposedly a meteor shower that night, but I didn’t see any meteors when we were laying in the back of Janie’s truck. There was also a cute family of foxes that burrowed under a tree.” They paused and refocused at the sight of Dal-Rae’s raised eyebrows. “Anyways, we took a recording, and even though it was silent while I was there, the recording had voices when I listened to it.” 

Remembering all the times Fran had dealt with naysayers, Dal-Rae kept herself from snorting and instead asked, “What did the voices say?”

They let go of their camera and let it hang around their neck, turning to face their girlfriend. She was sitting in front of a gravestone with the name “Jeffrey Rainey” etched onto it. When their dad had brought them here, Fran would distract themself by making up stories for the dead souls. Jeff Rainey owned a pawpaw orchard and was on the run from a secret society of librarians. Beyond him was Anastasia Reynolds, an ancestor of the lost Romanov, who married a children’s book publisher.

“Something about a cow and a hatchet. Oh! And the name Garfield.”

“Not McDonald?”

Fran laughed at Dal-Rae’s comment, unaware that it was made derisively. 

Feeling a little bad, Dal-Rae patted her lap so that Fran could sit without getting wet. Fran plopped down, their bony ass digging into Dal-Rae’s thigh. She hugged Fran and kissed the back of their neck. “Tell me more about the barn ghosts,” she said. 

“Not much else happened,” Fran admitted. “But Janie Davis and I did have fun rolling around in the hay.”

Dal-Rae pinched Fran’s sides and they laughed again, squirming in their girlfriend’s lap. Then both of them froze. From the rows of gravestones and random trees behind them came an eerie moaning sound. 

Without missing a beat, Fran raised their camera over Dal-Rae’s head and snapped a photo into the darkness. 

“Did you hear that?” they whispered. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Dal-Rae answered, pushing Fran off her lap.

Fran caught themself on all fours while Dal-Rae stood up. The creepy noise wasn’t a deterrent for them, but rather an encouragement. “That came from the direction of the Kneeling Lady,” they said. “I’m gonna check it out.”

“You’re what?” Dal-Rae grabbed Fran’s sleeve. Unfortunately, the tiger-print robe they wore over their outfit was silky and slipped right out of her fingers. 

Fran weaved between trees and gravestones with ease despite the lack of moonlight. They heard another noise, more like a whisper, as they approached the Kneeling Lady. 

The Kneeling Lady was just as it sounded—a statue of a kneeling lady. Atop a slab, a gray woman draped in fabric knelt on one knee. Her bare feet peeked out from under the stone-carved dress. Her hands rested on her front leg, but instead of looking down in mourning or up in hope, the Kneeling Lady stared straight forward, over the heads of anyone who stood in front of her. 

Instead of admiring the Kneeling Lady, Fran stood next to her and followed her gaze. The Kneeling Lady looked out onto the uniform rows of military graves, all made of the same small white headstone. No trees, just grass and a short obelisk explaining the importance of the memorial site. Just beyond the obelisk, Fran spotted what looked like an odd mist. 

Since their dad had spent those few months in jail, Fran had had trouble experiencing anything supernatural. Usually they saw wonder everywhere. Now, it was just… well, what everyone else saw. But now, this. This undulating, whispering mist. 

“Hello?” they said just loud enough for it not to be a whisper. The mist continued to ripple in the air near the obelisk. A soldier’s ghost? An upset widow haunting her husband’s grave? A random, wandering spirit who just happened to be there? “My name is Fran. Are you lost?”

“Who are you talking to?” Dal-Rae appeared by Fran’s side, out of breath from her jog to catch up. 

Startled by their girlfriend, Fran quickly looked back at the obelisk only to find that the mist had disappeared. They stamped their Ugg-boot-clad foot. “Damn!”

Dal-Rae squinted at the obelisk. “What?” 

Fran shook their head and leaned against the Kneeling Lady, eyes closed, trying not to cry. Dal-Rae was used to Fran’s big emotions, but not to Fran attempting to hide them. She grabbed Fran’s hand and shook their arm. “Babe. Talk to me.” She brought Fran’s hand up to her lips to kiss it. 

Fran reluctantly opened their eyes, glancing once more at the now lonely obelisk, and conceded. “Let’s get ice cream.”

~ ~ ~ 

At their regular table at The Dairy Goddess, Fran licked baby blue ice cream off their hand.

Both sat on the same side of the booth, and with their free hand, Fran played with one of Dal-Rae’s earrings. 

“I love cotton candy ice cream,” Fran said suddenly. “It tastes exactly like cotton candy. Like, cake batter ice cream tastes a little different, right? But cotton candy is such a fake—no synthetic. It’s a synthetic flavor. So it’s easy to replicate. Like Dr. Pepper.”

Dal-Rae snorted, not enjoying her own plain vanilla ice cream as much as she wanted to. She was still thinking about Fran’s strange behavior in the cemetery. Although, Fran had once given her a bird skull out of the blue, so maybe this was just a part of Fran she hadn’t encountered yet. She was always finding more of those. 

“My aunt loves Dr. Pepper,” Fran said, dropping their hand from their girlfriend’s ear. “Or at least she did when I lived with her.” 

“Whatever happened with her?” Dal-Rae stuck her spoon into her ice cream and pushed the dish aside. “You only lived there for a couple weeks before you moved in with your grandpa.”

“Actually, it was only three days. Then she sent me to a group home,” Fran said through a bite of synthetic flavor. “Pop only got me out when I called him. I never even got my clothes back.” 

Fran had always trusted and respected their dad, and in turn, their dad had trusted and respected them. Being open to otherworldly experiences engendered a certain amount of comfort with the unknown and necessitated a belief in others’ experiences despite having no physical evidence. But for their dad’s sister, this was all a sign of mental instability being passed from father to child. 

For Fran, the supernatural and their identity had always been linked, so when their dad was outed as a fraud, they doubted everything they thought they knew about themself. They stopped dressing and acting flamboyantly. They stopped seeing spirits. They stopped standing up for themself.

After moving in with their grandpa, Fran was able to rectify two of those things. But Pop didn’t believe in the supernatural, and Fran wasn’t sure how to look at the world on their own. So they’d picked up a camera. 

At The Dairy Goddess, Fran fiddled with their camera’s settings. Dal-Rae was waiting for them to say more. Fran always had a “more” to say. “I miss my dad,” they admitted. “I know I’m not supposed to, because he was in jail and lied to people and everything, but he was the first person—the only person—”

Dal-Rae put a hand on their shoulder to show them she understood without a struggle to find the right words. Her touch grounded them; they took a calming breath. “So what did you see earlier?” she asked. 

Fran’s eyes lit up. “A ghost, or a spirit, I think. Not a full-bodied apparition or anything. You know what? When we get home, we should develop these photos to see if anything else shows up on film. Just because I couldn’t see it doesn’t mean my camera didn’t pick anything up.”

“Like the barn ghosts,” Dal-Rae said.

“Exactly.” Fran shoved the rest of their ice cream into their mouth, wiping their hands and face clean with a clump of napkins. They reached over to grab Dal-Rae’s melted ice cream and gathered all the trash to throw away. As they stood, their foot caught on Dal-Rae’s bag and knocked it over, spilling its contents. 

Out came two lipsticks, a wallet, a cell phone, and a book. Holding all the trash precariously in one hand, Fran bent down. “Ooh, what are you reading?” 

“Nonono don’t!” She was too late. Fran flipped the book over and straightened up to look at it.

Fran chucked the trash hard into the garbage bin and raised their arm to throw the book in, too. Dal-Rae rushed over to hold them back. “Babe, wait. I just wanted to help.” She gently took the book out of Fran’s hand, setting aside Cornhusker Cons on the table behind her. 

“But you told me the book wouldn’t help.” Fran crossed their arms, refusing to turn around and instead staring into the garbage. The melted vanilla ice cream had splattered all over the black bag. It looked a little like an avant-garde art piece about environmentalism. Or the poor diets of modern society. They thought about buying a black jacket and splashing white paint on it. Or black pants, maybe. Dal-Rae could probably make it look more artsy than messy if they asked.

“I know. I’m sorry. But isn’t it better that I got it rather than let someone else buy it?” This was what Dal-Rae had told herself while Fran was petting the cat instead of paying attention to her. If she were being entirely truthful, she would have admitted that she wanted to read it. The pang of guilt in her chest reminded her of Fran’s expression in the bookstore—heartbroken. She put a hand on Fran’s shoulder, and they turned around, jaw clenched.

Dal-Rae picked up the book, opened it, and then tore it in half. Well, she tried to, at least. The book was surprisingly resistant to her efforts, even as she gritted her teeth and pulled harder. It was just paper, right? Fran reluctantly smiled and uncrossed their arms. They took the book from their girlfriend before she got frustrated and easily ripped it in half, holding the disconnected pages up triumphantly. And then—

“Will you do a ritual with me?” 

~ ~ ~ 

With their photos developing in the bathroom-turned-darkroom, Fran sat down cross-legged across from Dal-Rae on the floor of their grandpa’s living room. They’d lit seven candles, because seven was their favorite number—along with the fact that they could only find seven candles in Pop’s house. 

Fran held their hands palm up, and Dal-Rae placed her hands over theirs. Her hands were soft and warm and a little sweaty. They didn’t hold her hands, only kept them pressed together. They prompted their girlfriend to close her eyes and admired how beautiful she was before closing their own eyes. They took a big breath and soon began to feel something like static electricity between their hands. 

Then came the breeze. 

-Ryn PB