No Murder by Accident

This was a flash fiction submission for NYC Midnight.


Synopsis:
A teenage daughter exacts revenge on a woman she believes is stealing her father and their family vineyard. Consequences, however, can follow in unexpected ways.


I stand outside my tent, staring at the sleeping bag. I know I must climb in. Since the first day my Père allowed, I had spent most nights of the year camped between the vines, listening to them grow, awaiting the day I could pull the first ripe grape and taste my family’s deep commitment to our centuries old vineyard. Beside the tent, each night, a shimmer in the darkness floats in and out of cohesion.
I know Francine is only a spirit, that she has no physical capabilities. Spirits drift free on the wind. They are not of our dimension. They cannot wield a hammer, unlike that night in early November some years ago when I buried the claw of my Père’s sixteen oz. Craftsman into the back of her skull.
And yet she is still here.
I am cold, wet, and miserable. I want only the warmth of my sleeping bag, but my mind will not allow me to move. Standing between the rows of knotted vines, the passing rain shower easing, I pluck a grape, toss it at the bag. My shoulders grow stiff, my legs ache, my toes tingle in the cool evening breeze, damp from the rain. I stare until my eyes water, struggling to see as the grape bounces back to land at my feet.
She is only a spirit.
She cannot hurt me.
She is only a spirit.
She is only a spirit.
She is only a spirit.
I pull the cord and open the bag. I climb inside, shivering, shaking, teeth chattering so hard I think they will break in my jaw. I close the bag but do not zip it. I take off my coat, lay it beside me. I zip the tent closed and feel her come closer. I ignore her, yet I cannot close my eyes, recalling my troubles with disturbing clarity.
After Mother passed, Père struggled to maintain the farm. She had worked as hard as he, and at thirteen, I was no substitute. A determined man, amidst the fog of grief, Père, though he needed it, refused to hire more help.
When Francine appeared, with her money and her charm, she took control of our failing vineyard, my birthright. She stole Père’s heart, stole his moral compass. Then stole this farm, this piece of our family that defined us, convinced him that as partners, she could make him more money. She had stolen my Père from me. From me.
Now I feel her spirit grow close. I refuse to allow fear to control me. Like the night of her death, I experience no remorse.
A whisper floats beyond the tent. “Murder. Hammer. She knows. They all know.”
I choose not to engage.
Père eventually named her in the will to inherit this vineyard I had known all my life, removing me, the last of our bloodline, the rightful heir to our family’s heritage that had grown these vines to perfection for more than a hundred years. My decision became obvious, required.
I watched as her routine became mundane. Wandering the same vine rows each evening, busy with her phone, leaving Père and I to clean after dinner, leaving us, as usual, to do the work. One evening I followed her unnoticed with ease through rows of vines I had grown up alongside, waiting for her phone’s distraction before swinging that single, fatal blow. 
I wonder now, where is my mother’s spirit, and why have I not once seen her, while this manipulative specter haunts me each night? And where were the generations of family apparitions that were born, worked, and died on this farm? It occurs to me that perhaps Francine and I are not so different. Perhaps she is without remorse for her ongoing ghostly harassment.
“Murder,” her voice whispers again. “Murderer. Hammer.”
I ignore her, inhale the scent of damp canvas, of the dew on the vines, of another season of new wine. I close my eyes and dream of the day I shall find myself visited by the ghost of my mother, rather than the heartless thief I see each night. Fond memories of my mother’s love allow me to dream until I dare to open my eyes to a moonless night, and regardless of Francine’s presence, fall back to sleep again.
For the murder of Francine Gagnon, they sentenced me to two years of rehabilitation, some in Juvenile Detention, the rest I spent out here in the fields, working the vines, learning that what I had done was unjust.
I dream of mother, and ask for her forgiveness, the first time I had asked that of anyone.
When I awake, it is pre-dawn, the sun not yet risen. The sky brightening with shades of Pinot and Beaujolais, as though it too were ripening on the vine. A presence lay beside me, a human form of swirling smoke, displacing as I reach into it. The ghost refines into my mother, her knee-length hair unmistakable, her square jaw as strong as ever.
“My love, my beautiful Adeline. She follows you for a reason. You must grow from this. Hatred has no path forward. Give her cause to forgive, so that you may both move ahead.”
Her shimmer disappears in the growing morning light. I spend the day tending to the vines, for they live like us, needing love, needing daily care. I learn from them each day, but on this day, I have learned my greatest lesson.
That evening, I stand outside my tent, curtains of fog rolling through the valley, obscuring the low mountains in the west. Francine visits again, and for the first time since her death, we speak.
“It was wrong to take your life from you.” I say. “I should have paid with my own.”
She whispers three words, “I forgive you,” then shimmers out of existence, and for the first time in years I spend the night alone in my sleeping bag, resting in peace.
​
Lucien Telford 2022