Sometimes I get really caught up in useless backstory. Like I can tell you Sadie’s Masters was in Human-Computer Interaction from the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University at Bloomington. Does that matter at all in the story? No, no it does not. Nor does it matter that Leon’s boyfriend has no issue with how much time he spends with Sadie because it gives him more uninterrupted time writing fanfic. Is he even mentioned in the story? He is not. Alas, my brain is an interesting place…
The front door to my apartment blew open without warning and I jumped three feet straight up.
“I have pizza!” Leon announced loudly as he sashayed in, his typical ebullience abruptly falls as he noticed my panicked countenance. “Oh shit, I forgot to knock again. Girl, I am so sorry!”
You can’t get mad at Leon. He’s sunshine, Funfetti, and a disco ball in human form and he had been a beacon and my BFF throughout my undergrad life at U of M, and no small part of why I decided to accept the offer from EchoClade AI to relocate to SF. “No, I mean, yes, I mean, yeah, please knock.. but,” I sniffed the air, “Oh my god, is that Golden Boy’s Clam and Garlic pizza?”
“Pizza!” Leon proffered the box, his initial energy starting to return.
“You’re a god, Leon!”
“I know,” he said nonchalantly. “A curse I live with…” unprompted he handed me a square of pizza on a plate and plopped down on the couch. “So, uh, what’s up? You jumped when I came in – usually you squeak or swear, but startle? Who are you, girl?”
I let out an enormous sigh. “I’m a little freaked out right now,” I said.
Leon furrowed his brow dramatically. “Say more.”
“You know what? Here,” I said, switching on my desktop speakers, and pressing play on my laptop. My recorded voice came out of the speakers, a little breathless.
“Sunday, October 5th, 2025. Might have been the most perfect day since I moved to San Francisco. Sunny, warm but not hot… I’m on my new weekend ritual run along the Embarcadero, detoured out onto the Aquatic Park Pier for the view of the bridges. It’s just so…”
A distinct voice says very plainly, “Sadie…”
And I continue, “… perfect.” I stop and let out a laugh. “That’s really descriptive of me, I know. But, I mean, really, I can’t—” I stopped the playback and looked at Leon.
He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Who called your name there?”
“No one,” I said.
“Umm, come again?”
“No one. I was alone out there on the pier. I mean, I think some tourists on Segways rolled by at one point, but that was this morning – I pretty much had it to myself.”
“But… girl, that voice clearly said your name.”
“Yeah…”
His eyes suddenly bugged out with glee as he squealed, “You’ve got an EVP!”
“A what?”
“EVP! Electronic Voice Phenomenon – it’s when you catch a ghost on an audio recording.”
I groaned. “Ugh, ghost shit.” I love Leon, I do, but his obsession with the paranormal can sometimes be… a little much. “But… if that’s the case, why didn’t I hear it when I was recording into my phone?”
Leon waggled his eyebrows, “Nobody knows, but… play it again! Play it again!”
I obliged and played just the supposedly EVP voice.
Leon did a little dance. “You don’t understand – most EVPs sound like crap. Like, seriously, it’s all ‘blrggershppallagh.’” He released a small eruption of gibberish. “And the paranormal kiddos are all, ‘Did you hear that? The spirit clearly said he likes his foot tickled.’”
I wheeze-laughed at his imitation of some nerdy paranormal person.
“But that voice,” he pointed at the speakers, “There’s no question it says ‘Sadie’. You! It knew your name!” He suddenly jumped off the couch. “We’re going back!”
“What, now?”
“Yes, now! Strike while the ghostly iron is hot, and this is hawt as hell, girl!”
I looked at the clock and whined, “It’s already dark and I have pizza…”
He was already at the door and threw me my Patagonia jacket. “Get your Minnesota butt out of that chair. We’re going to the pier!”
Half an hour later we’re standing on the Aquatic Park pier freezing both of our asses off as the fog obscured both bridges. “What now?” I asked.
“Get you phone out. Start recording!!”
I pulled out my phone, opened my loyal Voice Memo app and hit the record button. “Sunday, October 5th… again. Back at Aquatic Park. In the dark. With Leon…”
“Hey hey!” he grinned.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, what now?”
“Just ask some questions. Like who said your name.”
“Umm… okay… When I was here earlier, someone said my name pretty clearly. Are you, uh… here now?” I threw Leon a quizzical look and he nodded enthusiastically. “Who… who are you? Do I… uh… know you? I mean… have we met? Leon,” I broke, “this is dumb.”
“This is great!” he said brightly.
“Okay… but I’m freezing. Can we go back to my apartment now?” I pressed stop and started walking.
With steaming lattes in hand, we both crowded around the laptop as I started the playback of the voice memo. “Umm… okay… When I was here earlier, someone said my name pretty clearly–”
“Sadie,” came the voice again, more steady than last time. I involuntarily gripped Leon’s bicep.
“Are you, uh… here now?”
“Yes,” the voice said, though it might have been more “Yep” or “Yeah” but it was absolutely affirmative.
“…Who… who are you? Do I… uh… know you?”
“No,” the voice said emphatically.
“What the hell is this?” I whispered frantically to Leon who just stared open-mouthed.
“I mean… have we met? Leon… this is dumb.”
“Family.”
Leon and I both mouthed the word “family” to each other and stared in freaked-out silence for long moments.
Leon broke the silence first. “So, who in your family died in San Francisco?”
“No one!” I said immediately. “No one in my immediate family has even been to San Francisco. I mean, when I told my mom I was moving here she all but asked if I had my passport and my shots.”
“No one?” Leon asked incredulously.
“I’m telling you! No one!”
The next day on my way home from work I called my mom. “Yeah, I’m fine, mom. I was just wondering… has anyone in our family ever lived in San Francisco? Maybe… I don’t know… died here?” I braced myself for the response to my poorly worded question. “That’s what I thought… no, I mean, it’s nothing, really. Just a weird thing… Can you ask dad? He said to call Aunt Judy, yeah, I heard.” Aunt Judy was our family genealogist on my dad’s side, so that made sense. “Yeah, no, it’s nothing. Really. Just curious…”
Aunt Judy was… exceptionally helpful…. After the first 45 minutes of small talk, promises to visit at Christmas, yada yada. “Oh yeah,” she said, “Well, you know, your great, great… well, he’d be your… “She carefully enunciated the “greats,” “Great-great-great-grandfather, Thaddeus Halloway was one of seven children. They were in New York at that time. His younger brother, Elias, decided to go to California sometime in the 1850s.”
“Oh! Where did he end up?” I asked enthusiastically.
“Well, we don’t know. The only letter that was passed down was postmarked San Francisco, 1852… and then nothing.”
Goosebumps.
Another 45 minutes of who Thadeus begat and when they moved three blocks over, and another block over and eventually moved to Minnesota and more assurances to visit at Christmas, and I hung up and danced around my apartment before calling Leon.
“Pizza!” Leon called the next day from outside the door before gingerly letting himself in, his brilliant smile falling when he saw me pale at the computer. “No, no, no, no, no… What is going on now?!”
“Last night you put the pieces together for me – they moved the bodies out of the San Francisco cemeteries to Colma, those whose families didn’t respond were interred in a mass grave in Colma and their headstones used for building material at Aquatic Park among other places. Great-great-granduncle Elias–”
“You forgot a ‘great’” Leon interrupted.
“What?”
“Great-great-great-granduncle”
I shot him a glare before continuing. “Great-great-great-granduncle Elias’s headstone was probably at Aquatic Park, which is why he communicated with me.”
“Right…” he knew this already, “And…”
“And I went to Colma this afternoon and went through the names interred at that mass grave…”
“And?!” he asked, gesturing for more.
In answer, I pressed play on the laptop.
“Tuesday, October 7th. I’m at Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, reading through the names of the ‘Laural Hill Mound,’… that’s a lovely name for it,” I said sarcastically. “Okay… it is alphabetical… that’s helpful…” my voice trails off as I scan the names. “…Halvorsen… Hamamoto… Hamrick… Holy shit… there it is… Elias Halloway… Well… there you are, uncle Elias,” my smile is practically audible in the recording. “I’m glad I got to meet you,” I said.
“I’m glad, too” a voice spoke clearly.
In the recording I started to say something, but other voices rose up. “Who are you?” “Do you know where we are?” “Are you my Ellie?” “We woke up alone.”
Leon dropped his slice of pizza.
